Monty the Observer - 1.41 Deity OCC Duel Earth Marathon 6Civ + 6C

[maltz]

Hello,

This is my third Civ5 story. You can find the first two here:
Roman
Greek

I have never had an One City Challenge (OCC) game in Civilization before. I guess I am usually impatient and don't like waiting (to be conquered). I might be paranoid, thinking every bit of mercy given to my opponent is cruelty to myself. However, the one-tile-one-unit system of Civ5 makes it possible to defend a narrow passage with limite units. So I hope I will survive this one.



I have heard people's Deity OCC success with Arabia (double resource = $$$), Siam (more food & culture from CS), etc. Recently I read an article about Monty's OCC making use of lots of lakes and the Aztec unique building Floating Gardens (replaces Watermill with +15% extra food, lake becomes 4/0/1). The player finally had a 46-population capital and out-performed any other Civ on Immortal difficulty.

Let's see if we can reproduce that on Deity.

Spoiler :

001. Since this is my first ever OCC, I intend to make it simpler and easier - I will use a Duel Earth map with 6 Civs (Monty + the 5 permenant members of the UN security council - US, China, England, France, and Russia, in Civ5's order) and 6 City States (default is 4). I enjoy Diplomacy and interaction. I recognize that this will make each AI Civ's growth room limited. So the game will become easier. Well maybe not, since they will all prey on the weak, which is me. I am not sure. I also activated the following game settings:

- Allow Policy Saving
- New Random Seed (I like to test things out to learn the game mechanism better. This will also makes the game easier since I can avoid extremely unlucky outcomes if I want to.)
- No Ancient Ruins To remove some random variable.
- One-City Challenge

I like Marathon speed to enjoy war a little more. I know it will make the game harder on OCC since I will be the tech-lagging defender. But I will still enjoy the torture.

At the time of writing this, I am about 1/4 into the game and have been having lots of fun. I learned many game mechanisms and actually find Civ5's diplomacy enjoyable in OCC! I encourage you to try a similar game but please be warned that currently (patch .141), the Lake's output is BUGGED (I will describe in detail later). So Monty is severely weakened if you pick a capital with lots and lots of lakes. But the 15% bonus food is still immensely powerful.

Spoiler :

002. Before I begin, I opened up the Duel Earth map and carefully studied ideal locations for Monty's capital. At first I thought (1) would be great, since it will be surrounded by flood plain (multiple Sugars = $$$), hills (too far away in Tiny Earth), and the Mediterrean "Lake" (due to the linkage of Morroco and Spain). Furthermore, the fact that (1) is costal makes it possible to build Lighthouse, further increaseing the food output of the lakes by 1.

So I proceed with that game, nailing Monty on the exact spot. Everything went well. Then I was ready to purchase the Floating Garden from my savings... and there was NO Floating Garden available! Then I saw the fine print below Floating Garden - must be built along a Lake or River. There is no Lake or River beside (1), although they are everywhere else! I abandoned that game with tears.

I then thought (2), (3), (4) are good alternative positions for Monty's capital. They all share the characteristics of being adjacent to Mountain (enables Observatory, +50% Research is too important to miss, I think) and the access of many Lake tiles.

Spoiler :

003. Alternatively, I could try an isolated location in North America (5). No mountain, though. 4 Lake tiles plus lots of growth space. But I like to interact with other Civs - I think it is the spirit of the game. Plus by the time I meet the rest of the world, someone might have united the Old World and I will be hopelessly behind.

Chapter 01. Monty the UN Observer

Spoiler :

004. I had about 10 starts (wrong birth place, crap resource, etc.) until I got this. I was delighted to see Marble, which was never present in Niles and rare in Europe. While I never build my own wonders in regular games (I take them from the AIs ), I think wonders may be critically important for an OCC game, since it provides many advantages that are not necessary in a regular conquest game. So I decided to give this map a try, even though I will only have 2 lake tiles! (But that also minimized my damage since Lake tiles are bugged.)

I have seen the Duel Earth enough times to know it is mid-Africa.

Spoiler :

005. Since I was planning to have a big population, I wanted Tenochititlan (Monty's capital, let's me call it Teno from now on) to have more workable tiles. Ocean (1/0/1) is just crap. So I moved Monty's settler towards the middle of Africa and sits right on the Marble. I lost some good hammers from this hill (hammers are HARD to come by in Civ5. 1 hammer is roughly 4 gold), but I saved some Workers' turns to build a Quarry here. Also, even if I had NOT researched Mansonry, I already received the +25% hammer wonder bonus. It helped when I was rushing my first wonder against the AI Civs later.

Spoiler :

006. Met my first CS, Ragusa, to my northwest. Maritime - Great. Hostile - Not so great.

Spoiler :

007. Greeted by my closest neighbor, Queen Elizabeth I. From my first try (that failed to produce a Floating Garden), I had Napoleon as my closest neighbor and MAN was he easy to manipulate into attacking City States and give me free influence points! Elizabeth on the other hand could NEVER be bribed to war City States! So the starting neighbors make a lot of difference. I had to spend a couple of thousand extra gold to ally with City States in this game.

Elizabeth is fittingly located in Europe. Quite close to my ideal "European spot" for Monty's capital.

In my previous games with Elizabeth, she always managed to do quite well. She has her mind set on Domination and will always wage war - but only at the smart times. She was a strong economic power. I have quite a bit of respect for the Elizabeth AI.

Spoiler :

008. Met second City States, Helsinki, to my northeast. Martime - Great. Friendly - Awesome! I guess I am really lucky to have two Maritime CSs right beside me. Actually Cultural would be nice, too, so I can quickly advance my social policies. Since this was my first OCC attempt, I was pretty open about any victory possible. If I have a lot of Cultural CS ally, maybe I will try a Cultural Victory.

Spoiler :

009. In order to explore the remaining of the continent, I had to trespass Helsinki. I am sure they will forget about it a few hundred years later (sounds long, but at this point it is short even on Marathon).

By the way, I think the patch fixed the common practice of stealing Deity CS's workers - now they all had their first worker very late.

Spoiler :

010. Found a Cultural CS Geneva to the north. Nice, we are playing an UN game anyway. So here is the HQ of the UN! And Monty is participating in the game as an Observer. He is not here to conquer, just stay alive and watch the permenant Security Council members pointing fingers at each other...

Spoiler :

011. Nice, another Cultural Civ, Seoul. Maybe later I will bribe someone to attack it and play the role of the rescuer - if Monty is still alive and has the cash. I heard OCC is extremely gold poor. I will see.

Spoiler :

012. Here Monty met President Washington of the United States, located in East Asia. Among the 5 AI Civs I have in this game, I found Washington's AI to be the worst. Washington is very easy to bribe to war others, but does not field enough army to actually win the war. Where do his hammers go to? He loves wonders.

A successful warmonger build military to take over other's cities and wonders. A failed warmonger builds his own wonders and cannot take others' cities.

Spoiler :

013. And here comes Catherine the Great of Russia, located in Middle-north Asia. For some reason, Catherine always gets below-average starting locations in my games, but she always showed remarkable resistance. She could build the strongest army and fight back waves after waves of invaders. And somehow the artist of Civ5 decided to make her Catherine the Great Cleavage. Now she is one of the most popular AI Civs for male players.

But I find her face really unattractive when she gets angry, making me want to get rid off her as soon as possible.

Spoiler :

014. And finally here is Empress Wu Zetian of China. Wu Zetian had her mind focused completely on technology - which is one of the hardest victories in Civ5!

I found China to be one of the hardest Civ to bribe to attack another Civ. Wu Zetian loves peace. Her opening quote is "People don't offend me; I don't offend people." That's pretty accurate. Wu Zetian is very easy to get along. She always wants to befriend me in my games. I have never been insulted by her even if I was such a mean warmonger. (On the other hand, Gandhi had insulted me countless times.)

I enjoy Wu Zetian in my games, since she brings a peaceful presence and injects a refreshing stream in the sea of denouncement and insults.

Wu is located in South Asia. Later on I found that she had very little growth space. From my experience with Duel Earth map, any Civ that spawned in south Asia failed to spawn a second city probably due to some path-finding bug.

Spoiler :

015. Since the Earth is smaller than Tiny, Monty's exploration team soon reached a dead end and had to turn back. Here is a rough summary of what he had learned. Some of the information won't be availble until later, but for the sake of story telling, it is better to start with a clear big picture.

Since my game is still ongoing and sometimes I do write to the point of my true progress, welcome all suggestions. You might save my ass!

(to be continued...)

 

[Arexander]

Now that was a fast start of a story. Your delightfully fast!

 

[Civ'ed]

I agree on the angry Cathy. She looks like her skin is being sucked into her skull...
Monty is a warmonger AI. See if you can copy that too.

 

[maltz]

Chapter 02. The Empty Lakes

Monty settled his capital Teno right in the middle of Africa in the hope to maximize his future workable territory.

In terms of luxurious resources, eventually the city will be able to work on 1 Marble, 1 Sugar, 1 Incense, and 2 Spices. That's five in total. Each lux. resource can be sold for 900 gold for 90 turns (10 gold per turn per resource).

In terms of food supply, Monty had 2 lakes tiles that he hoped to bring in 4 units of extra food (each lake gives 4/0/1, 2 eaten by the citizen working on it) with the Floating Gardens unique building. Also, Monty's territory will eventually contain part of the Nile River, Niger River, and Congo River, in addition to the lakes. So there will be a lot of fresh water farming to help with Aztec's population growth.

In terms of defense, Teno is guarded by two mountains and two lakes. The enemy would have really only two points of entry, if they are not smart enough to land in South Africa via the ocean.

Spoiler :

016. Queued a Worker to start. My plan is to harvest the Sugar (Research: Pottery - Calendar) to the northeast as soon as possible and rush for the Stonehenge for a huge boost of culture per turn (+8 compared to the Palace's +1). It will give Monty a lot more social policies in the long run.

Since there was no extra 3-food tiles, Teno's population grew rather slowly. I purchased the Oasis tile as soon as I had enough gold to accelerate the population growth by 50% (2 extra food to 3).

Spoiler :

017. While Teno's population grew to two, I noticed that the game automatically selected the second citizen to work on the grassland tile WEST of Teno. This tile only gives 2/0/0. I wondered, why don't we harvest the lake, which gives 2/0/1? (the game is all about optimization, and I will be very anal in an OCC).

Spoiler :

018. So I moved the citizen to work on the lake, and strangely I only received 1 extra food from it, although the screen clearly states 2. The total food should be 2 (from Capital) + 3 (from Oasis) + 2 (from Lake) = 7. But the in-game message showed only 6. Such a disappointment, especially for Monty on OCC! (More on the lake bug later.)

Spoiler :

019. Washington approached Monty for a declaration of friendship. Although in principle, befriendin the farthest Civ is never wrong, I felt that I need some more time to observe the AI leaders' interactions before deciding which side to take.

Washington would be a particularly bad Civ to befriend with, if I want to bribe him to attack City States, therefore giving me the chance to play hero and get a large number of free influence points from killing Washington's attacking units.

It turned out that Washington was THE ONLY Civ leader on the continent that is always ready to war others. That means China, England, and Russia are not easy to bribe! I should show my respect for them. This also makes my diplomacy a lot harder.

Spoiler :

020. An inconvenience of playing on a crowded duel map is that there is almost NO barbarian camp to bust! Barbarian camp serves three purposes:
(1) ATM machine. On Marathon it is 75 gold each. In larger maps my starting army was busting camps non-stop, giving me a steady stream of income.
(2) Training ground up to level 3. (Two promotions. Default is Lv1.)
(3) Free influence from City States. It is a common practice to delay the destruction of a barbarian camp until a City State requests the player to do it.

Propose (3) is impossible from this game - the AI will soon populate the continent, so there will be no tile for the barbarians to hide. But at least I could still tend to my "private camp" in South Africa. This "private camp" spawns every 50 turns or so. Not a lot of cash. But better than nothing.

Spoiler :

021. Soon after we refused Washington's Declaration of Friendship, Catherine came with the same invitation. Unfortunately, Monty must resist the great cleavage and send the lady home alone. Catheine is spawned right in the middle of the Euro-Asian continent (fittingly present-day Russia), which makes her subject to a large number of warfare. So befriending her could create multiple enemies for the weak Aztec.

Spoiler :

022. After busting the barbarian camp, Monty got enough cash to purchase the Sugar tile to the northeast. Unimproved, this tile already gives 2/0/3, and after improvement it becomes 3/0/4. It is easily one of the best possible tiles for early game.

Even though Teno will automatically assimilate that tile after 10 turns, I still purchased it. I believe that purchasing tiles is very important for early game in an OCC, since a little difference could accelerate the game by quite a few turns. Plus the city will simply acquire another tile by the time of border expansion. So there is nothing lost from the tile acquisition.

One can buy a tile pretty cheaply if the tile is among the top priority of the city (the immediately next tiles that will be assimilated into the city's border, usually 4 tiles or so). The purchase price doubles for tiles of the city's medium priority, and triples for low priority.

As the top priority tiles become assimilated, some medium priority tiles will be targeted next and their purchase cost will be reduced to the base price. So it is good to wait a while if the acquisition is not urgent. I never noticed this before, since I was going to conquer my neighbor and get everything anyway...

Spoiler :

023. Teno's population was 3 - and the lake bug continued. The total food should be 2+3+2+2 = 9, but the city only received 8.

Spoiler :

024. Nothing happened in the meantime. So we can fast foward a little to the completion of Calendar research. I immediately queued the Stonehenge wonder. (Teno was building a Monument after the Worker is completed, but paused the monument to build Stonehenge first.) Since Teno sits on Marble, any wonder construction receives 25% hammer bonus. I also sent the workers to work on the Sugar immediately.

Spoiler :

025. 72 turned had passed since the establishment of Teno (on Turn 2) and I accumulated 75 culture for Monty's first policy.

This means that Monty killed a total of ONE enemy unit (that barbarian warrior in Monty's private camp) for the culture bonus. To be honest, I think Monty's Civ bonus is extremely weak, since even in a conquest game, where I killed everything else in the world, I could only accumulate about 500-1000 experience points from all of my soldiers - which is about 100-200 kills.

This means that I can mostly get a few hundred culture points from Monty's Civ bonus for the entire game in a conquest victory. That's way less than the culture points required for ONE social policy. And how about OCC? Probably a lot fewer points since I am not going to kill everything else in the world.

Bribing a cultural Civ with 1000G (+8 culture for at least 40 turns even with a Hostile CS) could easily surpass that puny Aztec cultural bonus. Essentially, Monty's Civ bonus worths less than that 1000 bribery gold! That's nothing! (I estimated Greece's Civ bonus - at least 1000 gold for each Civ in my last Patronage game. In a 9-Civ game it is a 9000+ gold bonus!).

Anyway, I started the Tradition tree for Monty since it is clearly the best social policy geared towards an OCC. The first benefit from picking the Tradition tree is an instant 50% bonus for the EXCESS food in the capital, which means a permanent 50% faster population growth rate.

Spoiler :

026. There was not much I could do to accelerate the Stonehenge except to work on as many hammer tiles as possible. Every extra hammer helps.

Spoiler :

027. My jaw dropped when I saw Elizabeth declaring war on Monty. I guess the AI leaders only denounce and insult the human player when they get an excuse. Most AI Civ also first deliver a "reminder" about the human player's tiny army. This one came with no warning at all.

Spoiler :

028. Although I really love to war, I was curious about what I could do to change Elizabeth's decision. I loaded an Autosave in the previous turn. Elizabeth would agree to war China (the weakest AI Civ at the time probably due to their failure to spawn a second city) for 306 gold, but nothing else. But even that did not change Elizabeth's decision to bully Monty.

Spoiler :

029. Since I really love to war, I soon stopped testing and just let it happen. But of course, I am going to take away all of Elizabeth's cash - most of that actually comes from us (bribed her to declare war on Wu Zetian first). This loan also failed to change Elizabeth decision to declare war on Monty.

Ok, then. We earned 630 gold from the war declaration right off the bat!

Spoiler :

030. Very soon Wu Zetian came to propose mutual Open Borders. Monty has no interest in what happens to China since he has no intention to take it. Sold Open Borders for the default price of 50 gold! I sell Open Borders to all Civs whenever possible. Every gold counts.

Spoiler :

031. So where are the English invaders? Maybe on their way to China? I just saw a Scout. Killed it for... yeah! +3 Cultural bonus. That's exciting. Right.

Spoiler :

032. Now the war breaks out, I want to drag as many City States to ally with me as possible, so they will too declare war on England, help Monty stay alive, and hate Elizabeth so that she cannot buy them over easily and make them declare war on Monty. That will be a disaster.

With China's little tourism license fee, Monty just had enough gold to buy a short alliance with a City State. I decided to buy alliance from Ragusa (West Africa).

I hate to buy a Hostile CS, since on Marathon, their influence drops faster than stock prices. But Ragusa is right on the path of England's invasion to Aztec. So their help would make a whole lot of difference. Plus if the English does so well, they will be able to conquer Regusa, meaning that I will be able to liberate it for a large boost of influence. Of course, those are just Monty's daydreams at the time.

Strangely, while everything gets a x3 time multipler in Martahon, City State's influence decays only 33% slower on Marathon than on Standard (should be 67% slower, not 33%). So it essentially takes twice the gold to maintain relationship with City States on Marathon! Twice the gold!

Edited: However, I later realized that everything is 3 times more expensive on Marathon anyway. That makes City States comparatively cheaper - 34% to be exact. So it is actually a very good practice to befriend City States on Marathon.

That's probably why I have never heard people doing a Deity OCC on marathon. But hey, at least I was brave enough to try.

Spoiler :

033. A timely request from Wu Zetian. The most important reason that I bribed England to war China is that England and China are Monty's neighbors, although China was a little farther away. The worst situation for Monty is to be attacked by multiple Civs at the same time. So Monty really want to see England and China fighting each other.

So Monty nodded to Wu Zetian's invitation for a Declaration of Friendship. China is Aztec's first friend! Unlike the Western countries, Chinese won't criticize Aztec's human right issues. We can sacrifice our captives any time, any place, and anywhere we want.

Spoiler :

Turn 77. China and CS Ragusa had joined with Aztec in its defense of the aggressive England. If I were playing a normal game, I would love to see Russia also joining my side so I can wipe out England as soon as possible. But in an OCC, the destruction of England actually means the expansion of Russia. We want to keep every Civ evenly powered and evenly weak, friends or foes. Nobody should have a big army at hand. Russia should fight US at least. Let's see if we can make that come true later...

(to be continued...)

 

[maltz]

Chapter 03. The Wonderous Montezuma

Patch .167 is released. Sadly it doesn't address the lake bug. This chapter and the next few are still based on .141.

Monty soon received his first declration of war from England. This would have happened even if Monty were not on an OCC. In a normal game, the best option now is to research Mining - Bronze Working - Iron Working and use Swordsman and some Archers to rush England out of the game, then the next Civ, the next Civ, until the victory.

From hindsight, I believe it is very possible to do that even on an OCC, since resource trade is more than enough to pay for the initial cost of the units. And research doesn't matter if there won't be any Civ left to compete. So on a Pangaea map OCC, a very early domination victory could be achieved just like any other normal game.

If I eventually failed with the "peaceful" route, I will come back to an early save and see if I can conquer the Old World before the misfortune happens and concludes that war is the only way out.

Spoiler :

034. Monty's early research sequence. I picked Mining after Calendar so I can cut down a nice forest just northeast of Teno to provide 60 hammers for Stonehenge. Cutting forest in Civ5 provides a smaller bonus compared to Civ4.

Mining is also a prerequisite of Masonry, which allows Monty to sell Marble. Even if the Marble is sold to another Civ, the city still retains the 25% production bonus in wonder construction. So there is no reason not to sell it when the city does not have to worry about happiness.

Spoiler :

035. As mentioned, the worker's schedule is to first complete the Plantation, then chop the wood. Hammers are hard to come by, so why do I chop the forest - because that tile happens to be a plain (1/1/1). So removing the forest doesn't change anything, only to make it available for fresh water farm (2/1/1 before Civil Service, and 3/1/1 after). This is a much earlier advantage compared to a Lumber Mill a lot later. Early advantage means a lot.

Spoiler :

036. The sugars are ready to sell. I would love to sell it to England before the war, so I can get the Sugar back to sell to someone else! Too bad I missed it by a few turns. There was no way I could make it happen any sooner or I would have gone back and given you that story.

Since Aztec had declared friendship with China, the only other neighbor left for Aztec to war & exploit with was Russia. With that in mind, I sold Catherine the Sugar. China was very poor, so the only other potential buyer was Washington. I did sell Washington other resources later.

Spoiler :

037. My alliance with Ragusa soon expired (I only gave them 500 gold). And England immediately made a cease fire with the City State. Now I have Catherine's gold from the Sugar trade, so I bribed Ragusa with another 250 gold to make the two attack each other more.

I was hoping that this would make England and Ragusa permanently at war, but I was wrong. Maybe the penalty only applies to the human player? Or it had been fixed by a patch?

So in my last game, maybe I shouldn't have to worry about brining Seoul to hate me again and just wipe out Napoleon in Lyon immediately. Well, it is too late. Things went pretty well anyway.

Spoiler :

038. Although English declared war, its unit did not show up for a long time. Finally some Archers arrived, but I was unable to kill them in one attack since the Jaguar wasn't enough leveled, and there was already an English Great General in London.

I really hated the fact that after the patches, all Deity AI Civs get a Great General (GG) pretty much from the very beginning. It is a cheap way of preventing human players from taking them down easily early game. But it also had a side effect - now the aggressive AIs, who never use their GG in attacking, had a harder time to conquer another Civ completely since the defenders are powered by its own GG.

I would love to see AIs use their GGs. Send the them out. Let them lead a strong army to demolish some weak neighbors. (But after I am done with this game, please. )

Spoiler :

039. Ten turns had passed since the war declaration. England lost a few units. Ragusa probably lost 1 or 2, too. Monty's Jaguar picked up their second kill from a weakened English Warrior. (The first kill was the Scouts.)

Elizabeth came with a peace proposal that would cost Monty EVERYTHING. How about this - Monty gives you one thing - a finger - yeah that's how we Aztecs say goodbye. You go back and send more units out for us to kill before we talk a fair peace treaty.

Spoiler :

040. I was able to pick off another English unit here. Nice! From the current culture, you can easily see how many units Monty had killed. 3 units! (Somehow only gave me +8 culture. I don't get it. Barbarians count 2 only?) That's how ridiculously weak Monty's Civ bonus is.

Spoiler :

041. Washington came again with a Friendship Proposal. At the time I was really afraid that if I refuse again, he would then ally with Elizabeth. This would make it very hard for the ill-started Catherine and Wu Zetian, plus the self-castrated OCC Monty even if we work closely together since AI allies are as dumb as AI enemies.

If Monty agrees, he would be unable to declare war on the US later even if he can bribe him to war City States. But there might be a way around this (we will discuss it later).

So I agreed with Washington and kept my fingers crossed that Catherine, who had been left out, would not get wiped out. (Now Washington had nowhere else to go but to expand towards Catherine.) Catherine usually shows a lot of resistance. So she should be fine, yeah?

Spoiler :

042. While my only Jaguar was patching up their wounds in Ragusa, a sneaky unit of English Warrior was coming after Teno. I could send my forest-chopping Workers home, but I didn't want to wast turns. So I purchased a Jaguar. Now Monty has 2 units! Woohoo!

Spoiler :

043. Chopping down the forest brought Teno 60 hammers, saving 8 turns in the construction of Stonehenge. Since Stonehenge brings 8 cultures per turn, Monty got +64 Cultures from chopping down this forest. That's equivalent of killing 21 units! Guess how long it will take me to kill 21 units?! Certainly more than 210 turns. Maybe after 420 turns... my game would be over normally by then.

Also in the background you can see the sneaky English warrior got chased around and eventually killed - by Monty. I guess Monty's bonus's biggest benefit is to make the human player excited about each killing. Doesn't sound very educational...

The war with England continued with occasional kills. Nothing really exciting.

Spoiler :

044. Catherine came to Monty the second time to ask for a friendship! Argh. I wanted to agree, but I know I will regret it since we will get the "you make friend with our enemy!" negative modifier from others. So I refused her again. At the time I still had the hope to bribe Catherine to war some CS and declare war on her.

Later on, I realized that Catherine simply could not be bribed to attack any City State. Where is Napoleon when I need you? He must be stuck alone on America! Ha!

Spoiler :

045. After Masonry, Monty faced a life-altering choice of whether to tech up through military first (Bronze working + Irong Working), or through peaceful growth (Writing, etc.)

As I mentioned earlier, I intended to play a peaceful game first, so I went through the upper route to research Writing next. My plan was to rush the Great Library right after Stonehenge, and use the free tech from the Great Library to slingshot for, depending on the situation, either Iron Working (unsafe) or Philosophy (safe). The nice thing about Philosophy is that it unlocks the construction of Oracle, which offers a free social policy.

Let's cheer for a wonder-ous Monty - let's hope he becomes wonder-ful later. Hm, maybe that will attract more attacks. I should only construct those wonders that matters.

Spoiler :

046. Monty got a meaningless misssion from CS Seoul, which wants our neighbor Friendly Maritime CS Helsinki eliminated. Nah.

Spoiler :

047. Sold our Marble to Washington for 900 gold. Washington was the richest Civ in early game.

Spoiler :

048. With the extra gold, I bought CS Helsinki's alliance for the added force against England and extra food bonus. Teno should enjoy a period of rapid population growth!

Spoiler :

049. 12 food surplus in Teno! And surprisingly, I saw that the Lake tile gave correct production of 2 food (2/0/1). Why is the bug gone? I still have no idea. It just comes and goes throughout the game. Climate Change?

After chopping down the forest, I had the worker to setup farms on every 1/1/1 tile since I want to have as many hammers as possible, the 2/1/1 farms will always be worked on.

Spoiler :

050. My alliance with Helsinki caused Wu Zetian to talk to us. Sure I can leave Helsinki's protection to her. I will only liberate it when Elizabeth wipes it out, if she is capable of it.

Spoiler :

051. Helsinki wants a Great Scientist! There are two early wonders that produce Great Scientist points (and these are the only two ways since the scientist slot in Library was canceled in patches) - the Great Library and the Oracle. That's indeed what I wanted to build. So this mission is easy.

Spoiler :

052. Ragusa wants Cotton. Helsinki has Cotton. So if I am still allied with Helsinki when it harvests its Cotton, I will instantly become a good friend of Ragusa. That's good.

Spoiler :

053. Finally, the Stonehenge - Monty beat the Deity AIs in this one! Culture +8/turn is just crazy compared to Monty's Civ bonus. Engineer points from the Stonehenge are nice, but I will probably end up getting Great Scientists. Maybe eventually we will get a Great Engineer out of it to rush an Oxford University or something. I heard lots of good things about it.

(to be continued...)

 

[Civ'ed]

Well, you are the most violent Civ in AI terms so Lizzy is, of course, next in line.
(strange. Mzrokks' Lizzy appears to the others)
A NEW PATCH?!!!! Monty doesn't even have a PC

 

[maltz]

Chapter 04. The First Aztec-English War

From now on, the game is based on the .1.167 patch.

On Deity, the human OCC player has to go a great length to catch up with AI Civs. Every strategy is used to reduce the difference. I was being very anal in optimizing everything. I usually play the same period a few times to learn my decision and outcomes, then decide which way is the best. My luck varies in each run, but the goods and bads usually cancel out in the long run.

Among all quantifiable resources in Civ5, I think Gold is the most important. Gold can do just so many powerful things - buying units, buildings, and City States. The best way to earn gold is to sell resources. Each resource is essentially sold for 10 gold per turn. This easily outweighs any tile improvement and most wonders. (National Treasury only gives 8 gold per turn, but since a Market must be already in place, it gives 10 gold, too.) Monty's capital Teno can access 4 resources early on, and eventually much later a 5th. This is slightly below average, but not too bad (since he had Marble).

The second most important resource is hammer. A 250 hammer building requires about 1000 gold to purchase on Marathon. So each hammer = 4 gold (I am not sure about other speed. Never played them ). One on one, hammer is better than gold. But gold comes in such a huge quantity.

Beakers are not very important in a regular game, since the player will eventually have enough land to generate a large number of beakers to outtech the AIs. However, in an OCC, the importance of Beakers is much greater. Technology itself does not bring any power to the nation, but it is the buildings UNLOCKED by the technology that matters. The OCC capital will eventually become a collector of various buildings. By building the best as early as possible, the human player can eventually accumulate a huge amount of advantage to finally catch up with the Deity AIs.

Spoiler :

054. Still far away from that day. Researched Writing next to enable the purchase of Library. Although Library is nerfed, its national wonder National College (+5 Beaker AND +50% research) is not.

Next researched Bronze Working to remove the jungle where Spice grows. The earlier Monty can sell it the better. Each turn +10 gold.

Spoiler :

055. Aristocracy is a great Tradition policy. There will be lots and lots of World and National Wonders for Teno to construct.

Spoiler :

056. Here Catherine came for the 3rd time asking to befriend Monty. Since I have already realized that she could never be bribed to attack City States, I finally surrendered and gave her Monty's cell phone and Facebook alias.

Monty has made friend with everyone but Elizabeth (and Napoleon, whom Monty will not meet for a long, long time.)

Spoiler :

057. I bought the Incense tile a while earlier to enable to Workers to improve on it as soon as possible. Interestingly, the Civ AI always take a little gold off when taking a loan from the human player. (Should be 810 gold + 1 gold x 90 turns). It should be really the other way around. I didn't like it, but one turn wasted is 10 gold lost. So I shouldn't sit on the resource to wait for the AI to have enough cash to pay it out all together.

Spoiler :

058. I timed the construction of Monument (by manipulating Teno citizen's priority) so it finished together with the harvest of Incense. This way, I immediately have the cash to purchase a Library (Beakers from +9 to +12), unlocking the construction of National College.

Spoiler :

059. When I originally played this section, I The Great Library first, but then realized that I could slingshot a much more expensive tech - everyone's favorite Civil Service. The National College wonder is also way better than Great Library and should be built first. So I came back to an earlier save to build National College before the Great Library.

The best thing about OCC is that you can construct various Natioanl Wonders easily. Some of them are way better than a World Wonder. I guess the developers really want people to try out a small empire.

Spoiler :

060. While I should finish the prerequiste techs for Civil Service, it is still two wonders away. I was eager to see how good Floating Garden (requires The Wheel) is. So I queued Animal Husbandry and the Wheel next to unlock the Aztec unique building (replaces Water Mill - maybe the Floating Gardens are powered by pedals).

Spoiler :

061. The "invasion" of England carried on. There were very few invading units, since they were stopped by Monty two Maritime City States allies. Occasionally, a unit emerges on the mountain, but did not come down. I could "lure" them to attack my Jaguar by putting an Open Terrain specialty Juguar on the plain as shown in the picture. The Jaguar can usually survive the attack and finish off the attackers on the second turn.

The units on Deity probably gets a bonus on experience, I suspect. If any AI unit is attacked twice and not killed in a given turn, they will level up and heal instantly (and then kill your wounded units easily) on their move. Throughout the game, I had to reload several times at this very battleground to avoid my only units getting killed by those instant healing monsters this way.

Spoiler :

062. I learned that during border expansion, if there are multiple tiles selected by the city, there is no particular sequence in the order of expansion. The city in fact picks one randomly. I didn't realize this until I loaded a save to rework on some thing, and found that I lost a lot of hammer since the city picked the grassland instead. (So I reloaded again until I get the Hills back. )

For an OCC, the most important tile is not food, but hammer (1 hammer = 4 gold, as I mentioned). Under the magnification of the wonder construction bonus, one can save dozens of turns to have more hammers early on. So the Hill tiles (0/2/0 or 0/2/1) are really a huge priority for the border expansion. You might be tempted to build a farm if it is a riverside Hill, but 1 extra hammer is a lot more important than 2 extra food.

Spoiler :

063. With Marble and social policy, Teno had a 59% construction bonus in Wonder. That's 37% of turns saved! By the way, the 34% policy bonus is listed as 33% on the policy page, but actually it gives 34%. Nice. Every percent counts.

Spoiler :

064. Got Sugar from Helsinki. My happiness jumped from the alarming 0 to 5! I find that the best source of happiness in an OCC is allied City State's gift. And since I am going after Patronage anyway, those Happiness will get even higher with Cultural Diplomacy (a long time from now).

Spoiler :

065. An alternative source of happiness is the policy Legalism under Tradition, which reduces population-caused unhappiness by 33%. So if Teno will have 30 population in end game, this policy raises the happiness by 10. Is it a powerful policy? No. I easily got a lot more happiness from City States a lot earlier.

People usually pick Legalism to pave way for two further policies below it. One gives 300% border expansion rate. The expansion bonuses could be replaced with the World Wonder Angkor Wok (400% border expansion rate). The other gives 0.5 gold per population per turn. So eventually it could be a +15 gold/turn profit, but much less early-mid game. These are nice bonuses, but very weak early game. It will take quite a while for Teno's population to fill up city's tiles and pay enough taxes to compensate for the precious policy points.

Spoiler :

066. Another popular social policy for OCC is Oligarchy - +33% unit strength at home. I think this kind of defensive policy is like Wall and the Great Wall wonder. You only need it when you are invaded, and after your first line of defense had failed. If I constantly fight my wars outside my territory, I have no use of them. I can always come back later if I become desperate. I certainly hope not!

So I started saving my policy points and got ready for Patronage.

Spoiler :

067. The war still went on. I could occasionally kill one or two English soldiers coming through the "land pass" of Gibraltar, and every 50 turns or so bust another of Monty's private barbarian camp in South Africa.

I sent the Rough Terrain specialist Jaguar to guard ally Maritime CS Helsinki's Worker, since they were improving a Cotton tile very close to England. That Cotton will be given to me as soon as it gets harvested, and my capital Teno happened to demand Cotton. In addition, the Hostile Maritime Ragusa had a mission about seeing Cotton - they will give me some friendship points for just the possession of Cotton.

During the war, CS Helsinki lost quite a few soldiers to England, leaving its worker unguarded. Once I saw the worker captured by the English unit (and when I captured it back, I got 30 points of free influence, equivalent to 300 gold!). But when I reloaded a previous save to adjust some other things, it never got captured again. So my Jaguar was waiting there for nothing like an idiot.

Spoiler :

068. Another luck-dependent factor is England's cease fire. Sometimes, Elizabeth wants an unconditional cease fire. Sometimes she never agrees. Since every war-peace cycle gives all of the AI's cash for the human player , unconditional cease fire is immensely profitable. However, later I realized that each war declaration, even though you do not take AI's cities, still make you a little more "warmongerish" and therefore hated by other AI Civs. (I read that it is OK to declare war but do not take cities. Not true!)

It seems that the AI calculates its current and near-future (maybed including the queued units) military strength compared to their opponents' to decide whether to offer and accept an unconditional cease fire. For example, if Elizabeth lost quite a few units and is not building more units (the city is constructing wonders, buildings, etc.), she will agree with the unconditional case fire.

However, I refused Elizabeth's proposal here, since I thought I could gain more from this war. This could be a risky decision, since she might soon decide to build more army and not agree with a fair cease fire anymore. So I must find something to gain quickly.

Spoiler :

069. Turn 150 survey showed that Aztec was the least literate Civ. We still trail the second last Civ by 3 techs. Interestingly, even if China was also on an One City Challenge (later I realized that it did fail to spawn a second city due to its poor starting location and bad path-finding), they were the tech leader!

Spoiler :

070. While the National College and The Great Library was being constructed, I need to get the prerequisites for Civil Service - Philosophy and Trapping. But I believe I still have spare turns before that free tech is offered. So I decided to go for Iron Working first to reveal Iron deposit.

An OCC without Iron is almost a death sentence. Yet there is some hope in allied City States. They will supply Iron as soon as they harvest it, as long as you keep bribing them and keep them alive.

Spoiler :

071. With Cotton, Teno experienced its first "We Love the King Days", bringing a further 25% bonus in surplus food. There was almost always a population boom in Teno even though it was constantly on production (hammer) priority.

When the "We Love the King" bonus expires, the game randomly picks another luxurious resource for the city to demand. Here is another luck factor. In OCC there are very limited types of resources. So you can easily get assigned a bonus that you will never get and never see We Love the King days again.

Spoiler :

072. Now Ragusa's influence had improved, I could use just 250 gold to bring it to war England the second time. Each war declration means an instant -60 influence. Since OCC largely relies on City States, I think it is very important to keep the primary enemy Civ's influence low on key City States.

It is good that I did not sign a case fire with England a few turns ago.

Spoiler :

073. Although I was never able to let Helsinki's worker to be captured and then rescued, an English worker came close to work on the Ivory. Woohoo! Free worker! Each worker worths 700+ gold on Marathon. That's a huge gift! Thanks, Elizabeth.

Spoiler :

074. Now I felt I have gained enough from the war. I brought England two City State enemies, and stole a unit of Worker from them. What did Elizabeth gain from bullying the weak Aztec? Nothing. Ha!

Spoiler :

075. I used to think that OCC diplomacy gives the human players a break, for they are no longer denounced by everyone... well, here comes the first! I am not sure what was Elizabeth's excuse. What are Monty sins? Standing up against a shameless invasion?

So it is for real then - England is Aztec's permenant enemy! We will bring you down as soon as we can! Oh no. OCC is a different game. We will keep you alive and weak - as weak as the other Civs, as long as possible.

Spoiler :

076. Ragusa asks our unit donation. No way. I was hoping that an allied CS under invasion would give the mission of "eliminating 3 or 4 enemy's units for them", but it simply never happened. This mission is only given by neutral Civs. Doesn't make sense - allies should expect interactions and assistance more. I hope there are a lot more missions from allies, not less.

Spoiler :

077. I tried to sell Elizabeth my Open Borders. 3 gold was all she agreed to pay! (down from 50 gold) I know every gold counts, but I was going to bring war to England soon and such out their cash anyway.

With the help of two City States allies, Aztec easily survived its first war. They are still miles behind the other Civs. But at least they are alive and kicking!

(to be continued...)

 

[DragonHead]

Where is the next one?!

On occ are you able to puppet cities? I think it would be funny if someone had to burn dwon everything in teh world except for tehir one city, because tehy could only have one. Let's say you take a city, and it's betetr than your capitol, cany ou burn down or puppet your capital, in exchange for the other one?

 

[maltz]

I have no idea - it is my first OCC.

 

[maltz]

Chapter 05. Full Boats of Food

While the first Aztec-English war produced little result, Monty learned more about how Elizabeth thinks. This will be helpful in predicting her moves, and ultimately, in her... survival as a mediocre Civ.

Spoiler :

078. Soon Monty received a protest from Elizabeth. She wants to PROTECT Regusa. I thought you are still at war?

This notice, while ridiculous, is a developer's gift of revealing an AI Civ's intention to the player. If a leader says he or she wants to protect a CS, although not neceesarily announcing the protection, eventually the Civ will try to buy the CS's friendship over. So Monty did the right thing to drag Regusa to war England over and over. This way, Elizabeth can never bribe Regusa to join her side.

Spoiler :

079. We always want AI Civs to fight each other, not together against us. So here is a good news for Monty - Russia ans publicly denounced America! That's just nice. Hopefully they start fighting soon, and nobody takes any city from another.

England has three ways to invade Aztec. On the west there is Path 1a (Italian peninsula merged with Africa) and Path 1b (Iberian peninsula merged with Morocco). Both paths lead to London. In the east, there is a month path (path 2) well guarded by Helsinki. And there is the Mediterranean "lake" for ships (path 3).

At the time of taking this screenshot, I was still thinking about how to better defend Monty homeland, but a bit later it became a question of how Monty can go out and fight more enemies since the soldiers had nothing to do.

Spoiler :

080. The turn before and after the completion of the National College. Research jumped from 13.5 to 27.75 (a little more than doubled)! This national wonder is highly recommended. (Just after Stonehenge. That +8 culture on OCC is beyond worship.)

Spoiler :

081. Ah nice. Washington does not like Catherine (who just denounced him). I like this! Of course, Monty cannot join the war, since we have befriended both leader. Fortunately, there is no relationship penalty for saying no to an invitation for war.

Spoiler :

082. While our Jaguar caught the first English Worker, we had no way to bring the worker home since the mountain path had been blocked by Helsinki's own soldiers.

And Elizabeth had sent another worker to improve the Ivory! Please work slower and don't leave before the treaty expires.

Spoiler :

083. England bought the alliance of Seoul. But Elizabeth probably only spent 500 gold, since their alliance deteriorates back to friendship right on the next turn! Now we can declare war without worrying about angering CS Seoul, although it is a little too far away to make any difference.

Spoiler :

084. Washington declared war on Catherine! Awesome! I have a lot of confidence in Catherine's defense and Washington's lack of offense.

The English worker had finished improving on the ivory, but went further east to farm... Also awesome! Our Jaguar had been drooling for many hundred years.

Spoiler :

085. Peace Treaty expired! The first war brought us about 1300 gold. Now the second war is at least 150 gold of cash plus that worker (700 gold). I don't think I need that many workers - too bad we can't sell them back to England for ransom and kidnap them again later.

Spoiler :

086. In a regular game, maintaining relationship with City States are very easy. But cash is short on OCC, especially not on Marathon where CS costs twice the gold to maintain. But since Teno's happiness had dropped to 0, Monty bought CS Helsinki's alliance again and convince them to help.

Spoiler :

087. CS Helsinki's soldiers soon tried to find ways into England territory, and the Aztec captives' way home had been cleared! Essentially the second Aztec-English war is about bringing the kidnapped Workers home.

Spoiler :

088. Iron working completed - here Monty entered the Classical Era. As usual, we are the last to enter Classical.

Spoiler :

089. Iron Working researched! Now where is our Iron? You wouldn't be reading this story if I have no iron at all, right?

Actually, Monty had nearly no iron at all - just 2. That sucks. It is located on a hill, which immediately becomes the target of Teno's next expansion. But it is OK - There is another 6-iron tile to the north, which will certainly be incorporated by CS Ragusa. Then we can ally with the CS and get free access to 6 Iron. Nice!

Spoiler :

090. Our fourth resource had been worked and was successfully sold with full price. Washington is so rich in this game that 3 out of my 4 resources are sold to him (Catherine bought the last). I don't know where Washington got his cash from. But having a rich AI is good - so they will pay cash for our resources, enabling us to rush purchase buildings and units.

Spoiler :

091. The sale of Spice to Washington boosted Monty's bank account to 1600+ gold, allowing him to purchase the long-awaited Aztec unique building, the Floating Garden (replaces Watermill). 1320 gold for 360 hammer. Each hammer worths 3.67 gold.

Spoiler :

092. While Aztec has a really weak Civ bonus (gets a few culture points from battle kills), their other bonuses are very useful. The Jaguar healing trait (heals 2 HP after every kill) enables them to keep fighting weaker enemies like machines, and survive the counterattack from other enemy units. But the even better trait is the unique building Floating Garden's 15% food bonus, which gets applied to the Gross Food Income. Sounds abstract - let's take a look at the actual "before" picture.

Teno gathers 18 food from terrain. Let's call this 18 food the Gross Food Income. There are 8 citizens, who eat 16 food. So there are 18-16=2 food surplus. Under the capital modifier from policy, that 2 food surplus becomes 2*150% = 3.

Spoiler :

093. Now we can compare to the "after" picture. Teno now gathers 19 food from terrain (the installation of the Floating Garden temporarily fix the Lake bug!), plus 2 food bonus from the building itself. So the Raw Food Income becomes 21 food.

Before being eaten away by citizens, this Raw Food Income is actually boosted by the Floating Garden's 15% bonus. So the Boosted Food Income = 21*1.15 = 24.15.

Now please don't read that 21-16 = 8 nonsense from the screen. It is laughable. The programmer should have displayed "24" from 24.15 there instead of 21. Then 24-16 = 8 makes perfect sense.

After the citizens of Teno's consumption, the capital is left with 24.15 - 16 = 8.15 food. After the capital's +50% food surplus policy amplification, 8.15 becomes 12.225, which correctly displayed as 12.22 at the bottom.

12.22 food surplus after, compared to 3 food surplus before. Isn't it a wonder-level building? Compared to a regular Watermill, which offers 2 food surplus itself (in Teno's case, +2 to +4), Floating garden increased food surplus from +2 to +8. Floating Gardens further boosts growth by 100%!

More on the Lake Bug. I find that every time the game has to recalculate the tile production, the lake bug gets temporary fixed. A lake tile produces 4/0/1, not 1/0/1. However, as soon as the game is loaded (including quitting to Windows to restart the game the next day), the bug comes back and stays forever until the next recalculation. Since the player can't buy another Floating Gardens (unless they sell it for a cheap price and buy a new one with the full price), Floating Garden is a one-time solution of the Lake Bug.

Seeing that I have finally found one (of the solutions) of the Lake Bug problem, I made a save on Turn 171, so if I make any mistake, I have to come back to Turn 171 and go through everything again. That's annoying.

Then A few dozen turns later, the game crashed! So my precious Lake bonus was lost! As a result, I lreverted to my old habit of loading games frequently to optimize things. But fortunately, I soon discovered a second way of fixing the Lake Bug temporarily.

Spoiler :

094. Since the Lakes were functioning normally - I purchased the second Lake tile for Teno, which seems to be a low priority for Teno's automatic expansion.

Spoiler :

095. Two lakes for 17.4 food surplus! That's probably the fastest growth I had ever seen when tuning a city in production focus. (Later on, when Teno gets farmed properly, Food surplus gets insane.)

So far, I had bought 4 tiles and 2 buildings and had no gold left again. I actually find it IMPORTANT to keep cash low. When I have more than 1000 gold and press next turn, friendly and poor Civ leaders sometimes come to demand "donation". And if I refuse, they get a permanent negative relationship modifier. I hope I can ask AI Civs for donation - never succeeded.

With the help of Floating Garden and temporarily restored Lakes, Teno had entered an era of population boom that surpasses even a Deity city's growth rate! We are catching up! At least population-wise.

(to be continued...)

 

[maltz]

Chapter 06. Slingshot to Medieval

Spoiler :

Monty's OCC crusied into the Classic Era. The Old World's 5 Civs have started taking their friends and foes.

In Europe and Africa, there are the bitter enemies of England and Aztec. While it was England who declared war on Aztec first, Aztec got one right back. Monty was able to grab two important City State allies, Regusa and Helsinki.

In Asia, the US in East Asia had developed to become the richest and probably the most powerful Civilization in this game. Russia and US had started their fierce battle. Could Russia be on the losing end?

In south Asia, China has a very confined space and was doing an OCC as well . While England declared war on China early on, there had been no more development on that. China is the only country free of war. China still performed well in technological development.

How does Monty stop the front runner Washington while he is blocked by Elizabeth?

Spoiler :

With two captured workers from England, Teno's tile improvement will be completed soon. This is what Monty had in mind of what Teno will look like eventually.

Assuming Teno was able to expand to all tiles that are within its workable 3-tile radius, there will be a total of 25 tiles for citizen's employment. These 25 tiles will yield a total of 64 food, enough to feed 32 citizens. Since there are 2 Maritime City States, potentially they will offer 8 more food. Monty Floating Gardens brings another 2 food, making it a total of 64+8+2 = 74. Floating Garden also multiples that food by 15%, which is +11.1. Therefore, Teno will eventually provide 85.1 units of food, able to sustain a population of 42! Those extra 17 citizens can become specialists or try to cash some fish in the poor 1/0/1 ocean.

And that does not include various policies or buildings to reduce food consumption. Let's see how many people Monty can fit into Teno.

Spoiler :

096. 20 turns had passed for the first series of "We love the King" days. And now Teno citizens want to wear Fur, even if they live right on the Equator. If you are not afraid of dying from hyperthermia, sure.

I looked north for fur, and saw some Fur in CS Geneva, the Cultural CS due east of England. Later on, Monty can bribe the CS for a short while just to show some furs to our citizens. They would help Monty in the war, too.

Spoiler :

097. This is a short-term plan for improvement. The riverside Hills take a priority since we need to complete the wonders as soon as possible, and these tiles are already constantly worked on by the city. The Workers will then farm the 1/1/1 and 1/1/0 tiles to further boost food output, followed by 2/0/1 and 2/0/0 tiles.

In my earlier games, I prefer to build Trading Posts on 2/0 and 2/0/1 tiles. But after reflection, I believe in OCC farming would be a better choice since the extra 2 food can sustain a citizen in Market (or other, better buildings). Even in Market, the citizen will give me the 2 extra gold back PLUS some Great Merchant points. And the extra food will boost the city growth for more citizens to work earlier.

Spoiler :

098. Research of Philosophy completed. It is time to sign Research Agreements (RA)! If we can sign an RA with each Civ, we will have 4 free techs, while each other Civ only gets one. RA is one of the most important strategy in Deity games. Regular Deity games. Not sure about OCC.

Why not OCC? Because we have no gold to sign RA! Money is so tight in OCC. I have to plan carefully.

Spoiler :

099. Four turns till the completion of Trapping, and four turns till the completion of the Great Library. We are going to get a free tech right here, and that's Civil Service.

Spoiler :

100. Our earliest sold resource, Sugar, had expired. So we can sell it again.

Now what you see is in this picture actually comes from an earlier run that was eventually abandoned due to some bad decisions - I forgot to take new screenshots of an updated transaction later. In the finalized run, I actually sold the Sugar to the richer Washington and signed RA with Catherine. I think this is the better way, since Catherine is less advanced as Washington and deserves a free tech more.

Spoiler :

101. Again this is from the alternate reality. I signed the RA with Catherine. But one thing is real - I did sign my first RA on Turn 178.

Spoiler :

102. Now this is real - I did achieve a cease fire with Elizabeth. We had almost no fighting at all in this very short, 2nd Aztec-English war.

Spoiler :

103. The Great Library is completed! It is great that we beat the AIs on this one, too. I guess the warfares slowed down their building, or they had other priorities in mind. (Indeed, they were all building wonders, just other wonders.) Free tech!

Spoiler :

104. Civil Service is the most expensive tech to entire Medieval Era. Food +1 on fresh water farms is really nice. Almost too nice for Floating Garden to increase it further.

Spoiler :

105. Because of the slingshot approach, Monty actually was the first to enter Medieval Era! But his number of techs researched still trail behind.

Spoiler :

106. Queued Oracle next. This world wonder gives one free social policy. Giving that social policies could be very powerful, this wonder should also be given a high priority. Same with the Great Library, Oracle produces Great Scientists, too.

Note: At this point I had decided NOT to pursue a Cultural victory, since I have witnessed how slowly culture accumulates and realized how financially incapable an OCC game is - so I cannot sustain having two cultural Civ allies, where the majority of culture points come from!

Spoiler :

107. Before the free social policy, here is the hard-earned social policy I have been skipping for - Patronage! I was shocked of its power in my previous Greece game.

However, from hindsight from about 100 turns later, I have to doubt the usefulness of the Patronage tree in an OCC game for a non-Greece Civ especially on Marathon. The policies are certainly nice, but it is simply impossible for an OCC player to have the cash to ally with enough CS allies on Marathon. Reduced CS allies = reduced extra happiness = reduced extra research. The tree is a lot weaker in OCC than the Patronage tree for a large empire.

Well, at the time, I thought Patronage was a great idea. And since I gave up on Cultural Victory, I was also thinking about Diplomatic Victory, so at least I can keep the bribing cost down during the final push. So it might actually be a good idea after all. I am also curious to see how many Great People the CSs can give me.

Spoiler :

108. I look at the demographic chart a lot less in OCC, since I know I am doing poorly anyway. However, I was glad that I actually surpassed half of the Civs in their production! But that gets offset by Deity AI's 60% production cost. So Monty is still among the worst. Still a long way to go.

And strangely there is the 0% literacy rate of US citizens. Data unavailable?

Spoiler :

109. Very soon, Monty accumulated enough culture points for the first actual Patronage policy. Picked Philanthropy so Monty can bribe CS with better effects and reach the next policy Scholasticism (+33% research from City States) sooner.

Spoiler :

110. While Monty was still essentially in the last place in terms of technology, everyone else was still in the Classical Era. I guess the AIs like to finish most techs in one Era before moving on to the next. Not Monty! He has no Archers, no Boats... because our strategy so far has no use for these techs yet. Why waste the precious beakers on something we don't need?

Strangely Catherine only opened 1 policy.

Spoiler :

111. Also Monty must figure out something to slow down the front-runner Washington, even though he did not gain any ground from Catherine from their short war.

A failed warmonger is still a warmonger. Washington is always willing to take bribes to war others. He offered Monty a 30% discount to war Catherine, but Catherine already hates him, so this bribe is meaningless. We want NEW enemies for Washington. Washington cannot even touch Elizabeth, so the only victim left would be China. Wu Zetian must have accumulated some soldiers that can pack a punch on Washington. And if I can handle England in the west, Russia and China can concentrate on the US to block its expansion if left unchecked.

Spoiler :

112. After Civil Service, I turned to the Currency line of research (Archery - Mathematics - Currency) to be ready to built a Market, followed by National Treasury. I would love to purchase the Market, but I didn't have the gold!

As mentioned before, the National Treasury alone offers 10 gold per turn after Market's bonus. And the Market also increases the city's total output by 25%. Very nice!

Spoiler :

113. Marble expired too. Sold to Catherine.

Spoiler :

114. Since our previous two wars with Elizabeth were both quite productive, Monty could not wait for the third war against England! Let's see how much we can gain after the intial sign-on bonus of 426 gold!

Note: I later learned that if the Monty declares war against someone else for 3 times, he gets warmonger reputation. Then he can no longer sell resources for 900 gold, but 700 gold or so. So this one is our second, and last war declaration (unless we become desperate)! It better be very fruitful.

(to be continued...)

 

[Civ'ed]

Cold war's early

 

[Loev]

great story! I learned alot from the detailed information! thx!

 

[filli_noctus]

One thing you might like to consider, luxury and strategic resources don't actually have to be within a city's workable radius for you to use them. If you manage to get yourself a great artist you might like to consider using a culture bomb to get the furs north of Tenochtitlan.

 

[maltz]

Thanks.

Yeah this is actually what happened last night. I dropped a bomb to rob the iron and another Sugar from Ragusa. These guys only got angry for one turn and immediately returned to +20 (due to policy). Sold the Sugar and extra 4 iron for nice $$$.

 

[maltz]

Chapter 07. For the Great People

Since gold is very limited in OCC (especially on Marathon), here I will list a few thoughts that I learned about how to increase income:

(1) Resource sale. Default: 10 gold / turn or even better, a front payment. The single most important source of income for 80% of the game (only at the very end could the OCC city generate more profits). A lucky capital may have 6-7 resources for sale eventually. I think 5 resources (Teno) is about average. That's why Arab is highly regarded in OCC since its unique building Bazaar (replaces Market) DOUBLES resources and thus doubles this income. Playing Arab favors a large map with lot of Civs, since each Civ is a potential buyer. Selling extra strategic resources is also very profitable, but better not selling to an already powerful warmongering Civ or they will have too many powerful units to take down its neighbor.

Later on, I found that I can drop a culture bomb (Great Artist) just outside my border to incorporate resources (although I won't be able to send citizens to harvest it). If I can get 2 more resources, this is an instant +20 gold per turn. And if I drop the bomb on City States with the minimum +20 influence Patronage policy on, they will only get angry (-30) temporarily and immediately return to +20 on the next turn. And it is even better to incorporate your enemy's luxurious resources. I only wish Monty could do that on Elizabeth in this game.

(2) Buildings and Wonders

- Market (Currency). Regular building. +25% gold
- National Treasury. National wonder unlocked by Market. +10 gold per turn after Market's +25% bonus
- Bank (Banking). Regular building. +25% gold
- Stock Exchange (Electricity). Regular building. + 33% gold

(3) Social Policy, Commerce (activation bonus)

- +25% instantly. Highly recommended.

(4) Exploits

- Trade for all of AI's cash just before the war. This is not a very powerful exploit in an OCC since our military is usually too weak to ask for an unconditional cease fire. And if we piss off too many Civs due to our repeated declaration of war, we will not be able to sell resources for a good price anymore.

- Self-pillaging for multiple resource deals. I am not sure whether the patch has fixed it. Right after you sell the resource to an AI, you can use your own unit to pillage your own worked resource. Since the deal has been completed, the AI's cash is forever yours, but you can repair the resource and sell it to another Civ. Best used with the Pyramid wonder, so you can quickly repair the resource and sell it again. I was going to try it in this game, but since I stole 2 workers from England, there was no need for Pyramid anymore.

Note: I constantly hear people saying that they never use exploits. And they go around to condemn others whenever people become "ethically incorrect". Well, I am not here to show how skillful or righteous I am. I am just exploring the game, finding its bugs and holes to whine and have fun with them.

Spoiler :

115. I found that I was playing a lot more carefully in OCC, so I noticed many things that I used to ignore. This is another little mistake that I found. The Philanthropy social policy only increases the effect of gold to City States by 20%, not 25% as said in the description. A minor disappointment.

But I still bought Ragusa once more to let them hate England again. I didn't expect them to help much, just so that Elizabeth doesn't suddenly buy them over to hate me. And the food bonus is nice for Teno's rapid growth.

Spoiler :

116. Also spent 500 gold on Geneva, the Cultural CS just east of England. I did expect them to help more since they are right beside England. The other reason that I want this CS is that Teno citizens demands Fur. And Geneva has Fur.

Spoiler :

117. Just before I burned the gold on City States, Washington came to ask for a RA. But since I already slingshot to Medieval, I would have to pay 100 more gold or Washington won't understand my difficult jargon such as "let's go witch hunting". "Which hunting which?" Washington asked. Nah. We will wait for you to advance into Medieval Era then sign the RA. It turned out that I waited quite a while until he was ready.

Spoiler :

118. Alliance with Geneva expired immediately next turn, so I dropped another 250 gold. This better be worth it. The nice thing about befriending a Cultural CS is of course from their +12 per turn cultural points for way faster policy accumulation. I had two nice policies in mind: Educated Elite (Great People from City States) and activating Commerce (+25% gold in Capital). Then I don't know what else to pick since I have never had so many social policy points!

Spoiler :

120. (Skip 119. Same picture) Here comes the second period of "We Love the King Days" of Teno. The 25% food bonus only applies to the surplus food. So it is not as powerful as Floating Gardens (+15% to gross) or the Tradition social policy opening bonus (+50% to surplus). But since Teno was growing very rapidly, it only made it even better.

Note: 20 turns later, Tenos citizens demands Whale. There was a Whale just outside the default starting location. But since now Aztec became an inland Civ, we can't send any working boat out. Where can I find whales for them? England has one. But I doubt Elizabeth will ever want to trade with Monty. It would be much easier in a regular game - just take that city! So the "We Love the King Days" pretty much got stuck after the second one.

Spoiler :

121. Elizabeth soon asked a cease fire. And she will keep asking. But if Monty agrees here, he will not be able to make any more war declaration or his resources will be sold at a discount. That would be a huge loss. Monty won't stop fighting until he has completely crippled England so it cannot be of any threat till the end of the game!

Spoiler :

122. Oracle completed! This is Monty's 3rd world wonder (after Stonehenge, Great Library). Free social policy.

Spoiler :

123. Since we had a good number of CS allies at the moment, activated Scholasticism (33% of CS's research contributes to our own).

Before, I read opinions that after the patches that hugely nerfed library, it became very hard to keep pace with Deity Civs. Some argued that Scholasticism is the only way to go. Actually, later on I found that Monty was able to keep pace with AI's technology even without the help of City States, since all the research bonuses accumulated in Teno (University, Observatory) outshines the research contributions from City States.

Spoiler :

124. Beakers jumped from 32.25 to 41.6, a 29% increase, with 3 CS allies. (Later on I hardly have money to keep ONE CS ally. )

Spoiler :

125. On Marathon, under the benefits of Patronage policy, each 100 gold spent on a City State gives 12 points of relationship, which decays at 0.5 per turn for a non-hostile CS. So essentially every 100 gold investment will disappear in 24 turns. That means a turn maintenance of 4.17 gold/turn. For a hostile CS it is 5.56 (typo: not 5/56) gold/turn.

Monty at this point had 4 resources traded, bringing in 40 gold per turn, plus the city's own income. So he actually could afford to run with 4 already-discovered CS allies non-stop if he rush less buildings and stick with the two existing units. This will give Monty roughly +40% research (the proportion will decrease later) and later Great People benefits (that's the best!).

Happiness reached an all-time high under the resources from City States. Unlike the Greek game, I have no plan to waste one policy point in Cultural Diplomacy. I have enough happiness already.

Spoiler :

126. Washington came again to invite me to war Catherine. So Catherine is a threat of the stability of the world? No. You are. Washington is the only front runner. The world should unite to bring you down.

Spoiler :

127. It seemed that Wu Zetian had lost all of her units to Washington. For a moment, I thought Beijing would fall to the US and I made a great mistake in bribing Washington to declare war on China. But not long after I noticed that China fittingly completed the Great Wall. So China should remain safe.

For some reason the literacy rate in US stayed was 0...

Spoiler :

128. The kidnapped English labor worked as hard as our own. Soon the worker's progress caught up with Teno's population, so Monty promptly disbanded one of them for 21 gold! (Later on I disbanded more.)

You can see that I was building something else in Teno after the completion Oracle. It was a very difficult decision. (So many difficult decisions in OCC... ) I will spend a few paragraphs to discuss this decision:

Choice 1: Great People build
Choice 2: Golden Age build
Choice 3: Military build

(1) Great People build:
National Epic + Hagia Sophia for a combined +58% Great People (GP) generation rate.

GP generation of Civ5 in a city is similar to that of Civ4. On Marathon, the first one takes 300 points, the second 600, the third 900, 1200... So even though the city receives a 58% increased GP generation, in reality, the player get FAR LESS than 58% more great people. I made an Excel Spreadsheet to confirm that the bonus is actually quite miserable.

In a city with base GP generation with a GP of +10 per turn, it takes 840 turns to accumulate 8 GP. And under the 58% bonus, the GP becomes +15.8 per turn. It will take 854 turns to accumulate 10 GP. Only 2 more GP over such a long period. The game will end sometime around Turn 1000.

The difference gets a little better if I assign more citizens to be specialists, which Monty actually can afford. If the base rate is +20 points/turn (quite possible at mid-end game), then I will have 11 GP by turn 825 without National Epic and Haga Sophia, and 14 GP by turn 864 with them. 3 more GP.

Not very long after, I had enough cash to build a Garden. Then I will get another 25% bonus to make it 83%. But Garden is a regular building and can be rushed with other builds discussed below. So I will skip the discussion of Garden for now.

With this Great People build, I will have 2 or 3 more Great People from 2 wonders that combined costs me more than 50 turns of Teno's production. Is it worth it?

Maybe. Two or three extra specialists could be 2 Great Scientist and 1 Engineer. So I can save a bunch of them up and slingshot Globalization from 50 turns away to unlock the United Nation, which is instantly finished by a saved Great Engineer. This will help me end the game a lot sooner (if I have been saving cash for the final CS bribery push). Very dramatic ending. This would be the best way for Babylon (increased Great Scientist generation). But I don't want to pay another $5.

(2) Golden Age built:
Chichen Itza for 50% longer Golden Age.

Chichen Itza takes a long time to build, just slightly less than National Epic and Hagia Sophia combined. But the nice thing about this wonder is that it generates Great Engineer points, not the useless Artist Points of Hagia Sophia. Now patch .167 has nerfed Persia's Golden Age stacking. But still this is the way to go for Persia.

But where will Monty get his Golden Ages from? Happiness depends on City States, and I will soon be poor enough to again run on a marginally positive happiness. In my past games, most of my Golden Ages come from burning Great Generals generated from war. Now I don't even have my first Great General yet! (Later on, I found that I could generate the Great Generals in a pretty fast rate.)

If I will have eventually 4 Great Generals, I could keep the first one and burn the rest for 18, 16, 14 turns. With Chichen Itza, I get 9+8+7 = 24 more turns of Golden Age. If I do well in terms of military, I shouldn't need to spend a Great General on Citadel. And If I build a Taj Mahal later, I will get 15 extra turns of Golden Age.

And how much benefit is a Golden Age actually? Teno roughly gets +10 hammer and +25 gold extra per turn. So that 40 extra Golden Age turns (ideal condition) will give me about 400 hammers and 1000 gold. That's about 1/2 of another wonder (after the wonder production bonus) and... 1000 gold.

Is it good? Considering I am only 1/3 into the game, and had already dropped almost 4000 gold on City States and completed 3 world wonders and 1 national wonder, this is insignificant. A great Engineeer can rush one full building/wonder. Two extra resource brought by a Great Artist's Cultural Bomb brings 20 gold per turn, and will make 2000 gold after 100 turns. And Marathon games easily last 400 more turns after the first cultural bomb - 8000 gold!

I can also burn City State's gift GP for Golden Age, but I think it is a huge waste. Even Great Merchant brings in 1500 gold instantly plus 30 relationship points, which is worth 250 gold. Only the extra Great Generals are useless.

(3) Military build:
Barracks for one free level in new units + Heroic Epic for +15% troop strength for all.

This is not really a military game. Monty has a total of 2 units. At the end, he might have a total of... 4 units IF the Teno is threatened. I will probably purchase a cannon or two, or upgrade from a catapult. This military build is very defensive, based on the assumption that we will be threatened. If I do well strategically, controlling other Civs' power well, I will not need the extra strength to give me the upper hand. Maybe if Monty is in the middle of hostile AIs, this build would be a good choice.

(End of discussion)

Some of you may have recognized the Arc de Triomphe (National Epic) being built in Teno. Indeed, I finally I decided to go for the Great People build. Actually I originally went with Chichen Itza, but I wasn't happy with the complete lack of Golden Age in mid game. So I came back all the way to this point and went for the Great People ruote. The first OCC is very tiring.

Spoiler :

129. The alliance with Helsinki was going to expire. Monty was constantly running on a tight budget.

Spoiler :

130. Since Geneva declared war on England, Monty could receive a great live war broadcast from Europe from his African palace. That unprotected Genevan worker is begging to be captured! And we can rescue it for +30 relationship with Geneva, equivalent to 250 gold.

So far, Monty didn't have too much luck in completing City State's missions. He only completed the Cotton request from Regusa. We got a mission about wiping out another CS (can't happen). Luckily none of the bugged "build a road to link our capitals" showed up. By the way, Teno has no road at all. The 1 gold/turn per tile maintenance sounds too much. There is no trade route income anyway. And Teno will not be invaded if we fight wars in others' territory. Why bother?

Spoiler :

131. After Civil Service, I wanted to get to Education as soon as possible to build/purchase University for 50% research, and then slingshot with a Great Scientist (first GP from Teno) for the expensive Astronomy for Observatory and the chance to meet with Napoleon (to sell him resources) and two other City States. Since we are Monty, the extra population is the edge we must use well. Therefore, everything that magnifies effects with population gets an extra bonus. That includes Research buildings (Library, University, Observatory, Public School...).

Spoiler :

132. Last turn before the National Epic is completed. Although on the Great People meter view there was no difference shown, the correct bonus was still applied (+2 becomes +2.5, which still displays +2). We will see how Monty's Great People game plan works out...

(to be continued...)

 

[maltz]

Chapter 08. Saving Geneva

Turn 212. The construction of the National Epic (+25% Great People points) is completed, but we were still waiting on Theology to unlcok Hagia Sophia. It is OK. There are two other very important buildings that have been unlocked by the just completed Currency - Market and National Treasury.

Spoiler :

133. Monty would love to purcahse the Market if he had the cash. While rushing the Market itself is an expensive investment that will not break even for a long time, but in OCC it is the National Treasury that becomes immediately available next that makes a the difference.

Spoiler :

134. Oh this is not good. The Cultural CS Geneva's units have been wiped out by the English offense! And since English soldiers heal instantly if they don't die in one turn, they quickly surrounded Geneva. I can't afford to let England get another city especially when Monty's army is too weak to take it back - or can he? Monty had to help Geneva!

Note: Later, I realized the English soldiers' monstrous healing probably comes from Elizabeth's Honor policy bonus (and maybe plus Deity bonus?). However, after a few instant heals, the English units required way too much EXP to level up after just two attacks. So they again could be killed on the next turn! Nice.

Spoiler :

135. I read from a patch readme that the AI had been "improved" so that it now more properly protect its capital. Let me give that a try. So Monty marched a Jaguar close to London...

"Hey defenseless London, here comes Aztec's huge army! I am just the first unit but there are countless soldiers behind me!"

Immediately, all the English soldiers pulled back from Geneva to protect London, where nobody is going to attack (and succeed)! Geneva's crisis was temporarily over.

Spoiler :

136. Thanks to Geneva, got enough points for the next social policy. In my previous Greek game, I went for Cultural Diplomacy before Educated Elite and really liked it. In this game, too, I first picked Cultural Diplomacy without much thinking. But I soon regretted since the policy does not help Monty at all. Sure there is 10 more happiness points, but Monty already had +20 happiness before Cultural Diplomacy. Why does he need the extra 10 happiness? Faster next Golden Age? Golden Age is not that good (see previous chapter). Plus extra happiness is wasted in an Golden Age. The extra strategic resource is useless, too. Why do I need 12 extra iron instead of 6, when I at most will have 4 units? So I came back to this point and picked another policy.

Spoiler :

137. That other policy Aesthetics. Minimal influence with City States is +20. At this point, I had three City States that had a neutral relationship (0) (and will eventually allow Ragusa to drop back to Neutral since it is Hostile), so this policy instantly adds 80 relationships and will save me 667 gold in the final bribery push. But this is not the point of Aesthetics - this policy is the last prerequisite policy for Educated Elite. Free Great People! And there is an unexpected benefit of Aesthetics later on.

Spoiler :

138. While Monty is plagued by the lake bug, I found a very easy and obvious way to tell whether the game is currently under the bug, so I don't have to click this and that and add up the food harvested to know. If the citizens are automatically assigned to work on the lake, it means that the lake functions normally. Otherwise it is bugged.

The bug is really annoying, but very soon there will be temporarily solution again.

Spoiler :

139. That temporary solution is Golden Age! Our City State friends gave us so much resources that the first Aztec Golden Age arrived almost unexpectedly.

Spoiler :

140. When a Golden Age starts and ends, all tile productions of the city are recalculated. So the lakes in Teno again successfully registers as 4/0/1, not 1/0/1. +29 food bonus in Teno. Great!

So I made a save right before the onset of Golden Age, and if I want to change a decision later, I have to come back to this point. Then I made another save 20 turns later, just before the end of the Golden Age, as the next continuation point. Tiring, but at least that's one way to work around the bug.

Spoiler :

141. Knowing that Geneva will sooner or later fall to the English army, Monty made a bold decision - he will march his entire army, the open terrain specialist Jaguar and the rough terrain specialist Jaguar (let's call them Jao (Jaguar-Open) and Jar (Jaguar-Rough) from now on) to help Geneva! Go, Jao and Jar! At least to pick up a few kills for some cultural points. It was very boring in Africa.

But before Jao and Jar bravely join the battlefield, they should be first upgraded to Swordsman. Monty cannot afford to lose any of them.

Later, I realize that not every kill is equal, even though the game says each kill gives 3 culture points. If Jao kills a very weak unit (weak relative to Jao), he probably only receives 2 culture points. If Jar kills a powerful unit, he might get 5 culture points. 3 culture point is only awarded if the difference in power is not too large.

Spoiler :

142. Catherine invited us to war Washington! Nah. Washington is the biggest buyer of our resources. But this dilemma also reminds Monty that he needs to meet Napoleon as soon as possible as the alternative buyer of his resources, or he will never be able to help Catherine to weaken the front-runner Washington on the battlefield. But since Monty can no longer declare war (or he will be recognized, even by Catherine, as a world-threatening warmonger), war must be declared on Monty by Washington. How does he achieve that? I have no idea!

Spoiler :

143. Incense trade expired, too. Since Washington had his own incense now, I had to sell it to Catherine.

In this game, if Washington has 10 income, then Catherine has 6, Elizabeth has 5, Monty at this point has 4, while Wu Zetian has 1. Life is never fair! (I suspect that Wu Zetian signed an unequal treaty to ship lots of income to Washington. Although Deity AI never signs an unequal treaty to the human player, they love to do so to another Deity AI. Poor China. It is actually Monty who bribed Washington to attack Wu Zetian. Maybe not a good decision.)

Spoiler :

144. So how did Monty do during his Golden Age?
Population: Teno's population boom has pulled Monty's population to the middle rank! We are still behind Washington, but we are catching up. When the game calculates population, it uses a screwed formula to give more population to a single city of 10 than two cities of 5. So Monty's actual population by simple addition is probably the 5th or the last.
Food: First place! Floating Gardens is Aztec's greatest weapon.
Hammer: Second place! America has such a higher hammer count. Maybe they are having a Golden Age, too. Maybe they always run on a Golden Age. Who knows?
Gold: Third place. Not bad. Still far behind Washington.
Land: Second last.
Soldiers: Second last.
Happiness: First! Thanks to the resources from City States. But if +21 Happiness is the highest happiness already, perhaps the Deity AI is not constantly running on +40 to +50 happiness, which showed on the news report before patches? Maybe the game tries to mask this fact in the demographic chart. Not sure.
Technology: Second Last! Strangely the absolutely weak China was the still unchallenged tech leader. How does Wu Zetian pull that one off?

Well, at least we are doing better than the Deity OCC China in other categories. So OCC vs. OCC, Monty is better. That's comforting.

Spoiler :

145. Very soon, Jao and Jar crossed the Helsinki mountain path and started fighting English invaders! Even though Jao did not like to climb mountain, he had no problem killing these heavily promoted English archers. Culture points!

Spoiler :

146. A classic screenshot about Monty's OCC game on Deity. We have more surplus food than the rest of the world combined! But we are not going to share our surplus! Let the American starve (Washington completed the Hanging Gardens, increasing all cities' population by 1. But apparently that's more than what his lands can handle).

Spoiler :

147. Jar spotted the English iron mine, right next to London. This one provides 6 units of Iron! Oh we are so jealous!

But Elizabeth put a farm here! But soon she will convert it to an Iron mine. If that happens, Jao and Jar might be overwhelmed by English Swordsman and Catapult. At this stage in the game, the Deity Civs must be already producing Swordsman and Catapults. But how does Jao and Jar survive the crossfire after the pillage, when they run out of movement points?

Spoiler :

148. Teno finished its Market, and started the construction of the National Treasury. Only takes 7 turns! After Market, its +8 gold per turn becomes +10 (then +12 with Commerce policy, +14 with Bank... very nice). Hagia Sophia can wait.

Spoiler :

149. Finally, Monty had enough gold to sign a RA with Washington. Actually Washington brought it up first. It had been more than 50 turns since Monty signed his first RA with Catherine.

Signing RA with the front runner is not the best choice, but a free tech is a free tech. Saving us so many turns to reach victor - if it is reachable.

Spoiler :

150. Catherine declared war on Washington! That's awesome.

Somehow the CS Helsinki's soldiers decided to have an all-out advance on London (but only stood there without actually attacking). While they were shot to pieces like idiots (they were already dead/had retreated on this screenshot), Jao found a chance to sneak in and pillage England's... iron farm! Not that it made any difference. I didn't realize it was actually a farm until I made this picture. Or I probably wouldn't risk Jar's life for it.

Without iron, Elizabeth won't be able to produce anything to match our Swordsman until... Rifling! Let's keep it that way...

Note: If you look at the Turn number, you can see that the iron farm was pillaged (Turn 225) before it was spotted (Turn 227). This is not because of a space-time distortion. This is because I played this section a few times to correct some bad decisions. Various screenshots were taken at different games. The Turn 227 pictures were taken from a previous game. They did happen on time in the finalized version.

(to be continued...)

 

[maltz]

Chapter 09. Checkmate the Queen

Monty's entire army, Jao and Jar, successfully defeated the first wave of English invaders in Geneva. But their war is far from over. In this very battlefield, they will receive the most rigorous trainings of Aztec warriors!

Spoiler :

151. While the National Treasury was queued, I noticed a serious problem that has to be solved - Teno would soon running out of room to assign its citizens especially when the lake bug resumes. There were still many good tiles out there within the workable radius (3), such as the Spice tile, the riverside Hill, and a desert Hill. But they seem to be on a low priority of Teno's expansion and required at least 400 gold to purchase.

Later, it turned out that Teno rather expands to some useless Ocean tiles first before moving on to these nice tiles...

So we must take actions. Either Monty bites his tongue to buy tiles every time he needs more room (which will cost about 3000 gold), or he increases the rate of border expansion significantly. There are two ways to do that:

(1) Spend 2 policy points in the Tradition tree to get Landed Elite, which after patches reduces culture requirement for acquiring land tiles by 2/3.

(2) Build the Angkor Wat world wonder, which reduces the border expansion Cultural requirement by 3/4 (pre-patch it was by 1/2). Angkor Wat also gives +1 Great Engineer point/turn.

Spoiler :

152. The latter solution is faster (it takes about 80 turns to get 2 policy points, while building Angkor Wat takes only 29 turns) and slightly more effective. In addition, Monty has to save policy points for Educated Elite. Angkor Wat's Great Engineer point is also a small benefit.

Is 29 turns of construction worth 3000 gold? 3000 gold / 1260 hammers gives a gold/hammer ratio of 2.38. This is a very low ratio compared to purchasing buildings, which usually has a gold/hammer ratio close to 4. It is really a good deal.

So it is Angkor Wat after National Treasury! Hagia Sophia has to wait further. (Serious are we going to build it at all?)

Spoiler :

153. Jar and Jao was doing well in England. They have pillaged most of England's farms and was chasing the land units around! Must kill the archers before they upgrade to the annoying Longbows (Range 3)!

From this point on, England became powerless against the tiny but never-dying Aztec army. Jao and Jar healed a bit after killing every English unit, which largely increased their survivability under the fires of English Archers and city defense.

Elizabeth required iron to make powerful units to chase away Jao and Jar, but she does not have a Iron mine. She needs a worker to work on the iron, but if a worker unit ever comes into the range of Jao and Jar, it will be captured! Elizabeth had been asking for peace for many times, but Monty will never agree. Why give her the chance to work on that Iron?

Checkmate, Queen Elizabeth! You are officially out of the competition unless you are smart enough buy Iron from someone else. But is she that smart? I doubt AIs ever trade resources with each other...

In the meantime, Elizabeth started to build a large navy of Trireme, while occassionally producing a few Spearmen, Warriors and Archers for Jao and Jar to slaughter. Maybe one day she will use her fleet to dominate the sea, and setup some colony far away? That would be the greatest comeback. Only human players are smart enough to do that.

Spoiler :

154. 250 more gold to Ragusa so it declares war to England again. Must not let England grab it to declare war on Aztec.

Spoiler :

155. Aztec's first Golden Age has ended. Monty's hammer and gold had jumped to the 3rd place even during normal times. Literacy was second last, but at least we beat one! (poor Catherine)

China had almost no unit left, but was still the tech leader.

Napoleon had the largest army. I guess he will eventually sit one unit in every tile of North America and South America. He could be our biggest headache at end game, actually. Is there anyway to bring him down? Unlikely. The only thing we can do is to out-tech him and rush to victory before he does.

Spoiler :

156. Here comes another English worker foolish enough to come forward to repair the Ivory camp. That's the 3rd English worker Jao and Jar captured!

Spoiler :

157. And that happened to be Geneva's captured worker. Returned it for 30 free influence, equivalent to 250 gold. Great.

Spoiler :

158. Washington again wants us to war Catherine. Nope. You go ahead. I hope you get called a Warmonger soon.

Spoiler :

159. Education researched! Next on the list was Metal Casting, which will allow Steel and the Long Swordman upgrade. Steel is where the Monty's first Research Agreement (RA) will land on (ideally, but I will make sure that it happens ). I really had no need to butcher Elizabeth harder, but Steel was the most expensive and reachable tech before the RA was due. So Steel was the best choice of free tech at the time.

It did land on Steel in my first run! However, later on I came back to correct some other bad decisions several times, and I saw many different outcomes, including the cheapest un-researched tech, Sailing. That would be a disaster.

Spoiler :

160. Turn 255 - the 7th social policy arrived. Educated Elite!

A little spoiler for the future: It turned out that Monty waited 56 turns (Turn 311) for his first Great Person (GP).

I compared this to my previous Greek game. Alexander activated Educated Elite on Turn 316, and got his first GP on Turn 361 (45 turns).

Alexander was allying with 6 City States. Monty was allying with 2 City States. So it seems that the number of City States allies plays only a small role in free Great People generation. I wonder what's the trick to make the generation of GP faster?

Could it be culture? Alexander was running on a culture of +77 per turn when he activated Educated Elite, and was +84 when the first GP arrived. Monty was running +28 when he activated the policy, and when the GP arrived he was at +30. It seems that culture points also makes a small, if any impact.

Anyway, we are still 56 turns away from the excitement! Let's focus on something else.

Spoiler :

161. One-way Open Border with China expired, so Monty went ahead with the renewal proposal for 50 gold. And GOD CHINA WAS POOR! And Wu Zetian was still the tech leader! Monty felt ashamed to take away anything further from Wu Zetian. We will come back when she gets 50 gold...

Spoiler :

162. With all the fighting in Europe, finally Monty got his first Great General! His name is Zhuge Liang, who is an extremely famous Chinese Prime Minister. But he shouldn't be born until 1100+ years later. Let's see if we can keep him with Jao and Jar till the end of the game.

Spoiler :

163. Our Spice expired. Washington also got a hold of his own Spice; Wu Zetian was too poor. So we could sell it only to Catherine, even though she didn't even have the 1/3 of the cash. We lost 900-(239+7*90)= 31 gold in that deal!

Spoiler :

164. But Monty needed the cash. In fact, he still needed a little more cash for a great purpose. So he reluctantly took a loan from Washington, losing another 45 gold! Darn it!

Spoiler :

165. That's Monty's great purpose. Exactly 1780 gold required to purchase University! It would take Teno too long to build. It is better to purchase it with a pretty discounted rate of 1780/600 = 2.97 gold per hammer. That's the best deal in terms of building purchase that I have seen.

Not every building has the same gold/hammer ratio - it could be as high as 4 and as low as University (2.97). Ideally, the player purchases buildings with a low Gold/Hammer ratio while building those with high Gold/Hammer ratio.

Spoiler :

166. Angkor Wat still needed 11 turns, but the Workers were running out of things to do. Since each worker takes 1 gold per turn to maintain, I disbanded the extra to save a little maintenance and to get 21 gold of disband earning.

But I immediately regretted that decision - after 11 turns our borders expanded so fast that I needed the second worker again!

Spoiler :

167. Worry not - here we captured yet another English worker! But somehow I disband them as well!

It was probably late and I had no idea of what I was doing. And I forgot to reload, too! Such a pity.

I hope Elizabeth would build another worker since she had none - but that never happened. As a result, Monty had to ran on just one worker...

But at least we saved the maintenance fee.

(to be continued...)

 

[Wlv]

Thanks for the fantastic read so far. Am learning so much about the game by reading this

 

[maltz]

Chapter 10. The C-A-R Alliance

Monty successfully crippled England in the third and final Aztec-England war, and would not stop beating that bleeding leg. (Oh such a brutal Monty. ) From now on, As long as Monty keeps Washington, Catherine, and Wu Zetian occupied with each other, Teno will be safe even if completely defenseless.

Spoiler :

168. Metal Casting completed. Monty was ready for the most expensive free tech at the time, Steel, from the Research Agreement (Turn 178-268) with Catherine.

I decided to go for Construction - Engineering next, so the Worker can build a Lumber mill in the forest tile SE of Teno.

From hindsight, I think I should have go for Sailing - Optics - Compass first to enable Astronomy for Teno's first ever home-made Great Person, a Great Scientist (G-Sci), to rush. It turned out that my timing was a little off - the Great Scientist came out and had nothing to do for 7 turns. So I could have discovered America 7 turns earlier, giving me 70 more gold from resource trade with Napoleon. And I also lost 7 gold in the Great Scientist's maintenance.

But 77 gold is not a large-enough difference to motivate me to come back to this point to play again.

Spoiler :

169. Free tech Steel! As soon as Monty gets enough gold, Jao and Jar will be upgraded further. They will own England completely. But Elizabeth's sea of Trireme prevents Jao and Jar from taking over any English city. Or maybe they need help from a 3rd unit... no money for that now!

Spoiler :

170. Our earliest sold resource, Sugar, had expired again. It was time for the 3rd round of resource trade! Renewed it with Washington for 900 gold. No discount. Great buyer.

Spoiler :

171. Metal Casting enables the construction of Workshop, which gives 20% production bonus of Building (regular buildings, not wonders), and an Engineer Specialist slot (+2 hammer, +3 Great Engineer point).

Since Monty was rich again from Washington's Sugar trade, he purchased the Workshop. 1150 gold for 300 hammer is not a very good deal (gold/hammer ratio = 3.83). But we immediately benefit from 2 extra hammers per turn plus 3 more Great Engineer points (previously Teno only earn +1 per turn from Stonehenge and will have another +1 from the soon-completed Angkor Wat) An. Still a great investment just like the University. Let's call it the University of Tenochtitlan (U of T) to sound better.

Then I realized that I forgot to assign a specialist in U of T! But Teno probably got some additional population growth from my negligence. I will let that mistake pass. Too many reloads already.

Spoiler :

172. With a specialist in U of T, Teno receives +3 Beaker per turn and +3 Great Scientist point per turn. That +3 Beaker is further boosted to +6 by National College (+50% research) and the University itself (+50%). Teno's beaker output increased from 60 to 66 - +10%! And previously we only had +2 Great Scientist point (Great Library, Oracle). So specialists are awesome if we have the food to support them. Monty always have extra food.

Spoiler :

173. Got a mission from our neighbor CS Ragusa. They want us to build a Manchu Pichu, which the AIs love to build.

This wonder increases Trade Route income by 25%. Could be a nice wonder in a game with lots of connected cities. But this wonder is utterly useless in OCC. We have 0 gold from trade, because we have no city to trade with the capital! We don't even have road! Hopefully Monty gets some luck from other City States.

Spoiler :

174. Demographic chart on Turn 269. Monty has become the 2nd most productive (food-, hammer-, and gold-wise) Civ in the game, after the clear leader Washington. Now if we can push our technology more... (Aztec was tied with England as the last place).

Spoiler :

175. Catherine came to remind us that she wants to ally with CS Geneva. Since all her gold pretty much flow to Monty, there was little risk that Geneva would be bribed over. Please concentrate on Washington.

Spoiler :

176. Angkor Wat completed! While I had no plan to build this wonder at the beginning, I realized that the natural expansion of the capital border is simply too slow in an OCC. Sure one can simply buy tiles after tiles, or spend TWO precious policy points for a slightly weaker 2/3 culture cost reduction, but I think Angkor Wat is the best solution.

I guess one could alternatively build lots of +culture buildings (Opera House, Museum, and the national wonders), which, however, will take a lot of gold to run. Angkor Wat is possibly passable for a Cultural Victory OCC game by a Civ without such a high population growth. (Siam with increased City States input sounds like the way to go.)

Spoiler :

177. Now Monty is ready to beeline for Astronomy! And he had to start from Sailing. Since Aztec citizens collected their food from lakes, there was never any need for wind.

Spoiler :

178. Marble expired, too. Sold again to Washington for cash. Monty loves this buyer - he always pays cash!

It turned out that Monty could sell only his Sugar and Marble to Washington, since Washington has his own Spice and Incense. So Monty had to sell his eventually 2 Spices and 1 Incense to others.

Spoiler :

179. Got an interesting message from Wu Zetian. She has befriended Russia? That's nice. Very, very nice. The China-Russia alliance against Washington has formed just as Monty wanted! If you two ladies work together, you should be able to stop Washington from overpowering you.

By the way, I found that I will crop out the leader's head if I want to show the texts better. So I photoshoped their cropped head back in.

Spoiler :

180. Got the same interesting message from Catherine. So she has befriended China? That's... the same thing.

Now all Monty needs to do is to prevent Napoleon and Elizabeth from joining Washington's side. Then Aztec will be on the upper hand in Diplomacy for the rest of the game!

Interestingly, Catherine got a negative modifier since we befriended Washington as well. But Washington doesn't mind that we befriended Catherine. In one of the earlier runs of this section of the game, I got a sudden denouncement from Catherine (probably for the above reason). But it happens rarely. Of course I like the alliance outcome better.

Spoiler :

181. I was looking at my diplomatic options with Catherine and noticed that I could propose "a Joint Declaration of Friendship". But didn't we do that already a few thousand years ago? I clicked on the option and was refused by Catherine - I thought we were already friends! And the Diplomatic screen still registers Aztec as friend of Russia.

So I think it is a bug. If the human player already befriends Civ A and Civ B, and Civ A and B befriends each other, then the human player erroneously get the option to befriend Civ A and Civ B again.

Spoiler :

182. Strangely, even though Monty was refused by Catherine for a redundant Joint Declaration of Friendship, Wu Zetian still came on the next turn to congratulate Monty that he was now a friend of Russia. You know, you came on the last turn to say the same thing already...

Just for fun, Monty asked Wu Zetian for a Joint Declaration of Friendship. And she agreed.

Spoiler :

183. And on the next turn we again received congratulations from Catherine for that! Enough! We are friends!

Spoiler :

184. STOP!!

Ok I am just joking. This is the same picture that I accidentally saved twice. Luckily Monty didn't get more congratulations afterward, or the game would become too mellow for Monty to endure.

The China-Aztec-Russia (CAR) triple alliance formed! I sincerely hope this friendship with the ladies last to the end of game.

(to be continued...)