NC LCXVI Suleiman of the Ottomans

[TheSunIsDark]

Spoiler :

Cathy got Buddhism and Judaism, chose Buddhism as a state religion but spread Jewish missionaries to Shaka, who is still cautious despite religious differences and border tensions from my gold+iron city. My only source of horse is far to the west in a former barb city. Shaka and Monty are WHEEOHRN, but I'm second to Shaka in power and have more military techs than him. Monty is just crazy, but he's too far away and too weak. Brilliant starting position, btw.

 

[Pengu]

Until 800 BC Imm

Spoiler :

Uneventful game to say the least. SIP and half decent start. No religion close by which might be a problem. When I saw the poor commerce, the gold up north and Shaka I thought **** it and took the city. He hasn't started plotting, probably cause I got axes and he only got archers. I haven't decided if I want to mess with him before he hooks up his iron(which I guess he has). Only went with 3 cities early on, mostly blocking off Shaka to get to Aesth and GS early on. And I just got in Aesth which I traded with Cathy for Alpha. Almost noone else has writing so it's not the fastest map.
My biggest worry is all the space to my west. Unless I take it Cathy will, but your maintenance really hurts when you get up to 10+cities.
I think doing the bribing game with Shaka and Monty is the wise path to take though.That will get my relationship bonuses with Shaka and keep me reasonably safe from him.

Until 100 AD

Spoiler :

Well, my economy went down the toilet and I really limped to Currency. All because I didn't want Cathy or Shaka to become to big.
So I might have 10 cities, but everything else is not so great.
I did bribe Monty and Shaka on Hammy as that is the only way to keep Shaka off me. I had to bribe Shaka twice otherwise it would be a matter of time until he declares on me.
I did manage to keep Cathy to around 10 cities although she is teching really fast.
But there is no doubt who the powerhouse of this game is going to be....
Zara has had no trouble getting up to 13! cities already and that is tough to deal with.
I guess I could have been in a better tech situation instead of nothing but currency, but I hope I made the right choice...

Until 400 AD

Spoiler :

And that may be game....
Man, Shaka is just nuts. I bribe him on another one. No red fist and just out of nowhere he declares on me
While at war already....
It's not about repelling him, which wasn't hard. And Monty was also ready to step in.
BUT, the tech situation is awful. Dead last in tech which 0 % tech slider, Cathy and Zara flying ahead. I could snag a city or 2 from Shaka but I have too many cities already at 12-13.
Shaka is just insane.
Already at war.... check
No chance of actually taking a city.... check
spoil both mine and the defenders civ.... check
I have no clue how I am getting back at this. No COL while the AI's have feu and soon CS.

Until 800 AD

Spoiler :

Well, I am alive...
Took 2 of Shaka's cities including his capitol. But with no construction, no feu and no money it was pointless to continue.
I am sitting on so many cities, 13 an not until now I could actually start playing. Finally got col just now and have to start getting courthouses.
Zara is a monster with 14 cities peacefully and going for edu. The 2 biggest religion blocks are buddist (Cathy, Zara and Shaka) and Hindu( Nappy and Hammy).
For some reason Nappy, who is further away, spammed missionaries early on so against better judgement I switched into Hindu.
Both to get going faster as it would take some time spreading around buddism, and to maybe get Hammy back to like me so I can trade with him.
The big problem here is my neighbours Cathy and Shaka. If/when they declare I might not be able to stop them.
I have to hope for a super late game with tanks or something it seems

 

[blunderwonder]

@pengu

Spoiler :

i hate that stuff too , even with currency its difficult to start up on some maps, it just seems city placement on some maps is an impossible task, no matter you put them your maintance will be over 6 a city even with under 8 cities. All you can do is run specialists and build research and wealth till you can get matured cottages or whip some courthouses. If you had a tech lead, you could sell old techs to shaka and monty for gold, and trade all your resources for gold... I started another map so i cant remember this one was well, but thats how it is with some maps.

Sometimes you can only fit 6 cities and you start fast, but struggle a bit later, other times you can expand to 15 cities, and it feels slow and painful, but it usually is still pretty quick. I wouldnt count yourself out is all, sometimes CS comes 200bc, other times it comes late

 

[NihilZero]

Maintenance is a pain on this map script, because the grid size for standard Inland Sea is 32x52 tiles, which is the size of a tiny map on most map scripts.

Maintenance is scaled for grid size - the smaller the grid, the higher the maintenance. However, since inland sea is mostly land it's actually a big map (albeit on a "tiny" grid), and you will need a lot of cities to be competitive. Hence you get crucified by maintenance until you get to state property.

@ Pengu:

Spoiler :

Man, Shaka is just nuts. I bribe him on another one. No red fist and just out of nowhere he declares on me
While at war already....

You must have refused a demand from Shaka. Some AIs can plot a sneak attack while already at war, but only if you refuse a demand.

 

[blunderwonder]

Maintenance is a pain on this map script, because the grid size for standard Inland Sea is 32x52 tiles, which is the size of a tiny map on most map scripts.

Maintenance is scaled for grid size - the smaller the grid, the higher the maintenance. However, since inland sea is mostly land it's actually a big map (albeit on a "tiny" grid), and you will need a lot of cities to be competitive. Hence you get crucified by maintenance until you get to state property.

could you or someone else explain this a bit better? I see what your saying but im still confused by it. Inland sea is one of the largest maps i can think of, why would the game think its tiny..?

Ive never done much map generating, but i thought all of the NC games were standard/standard size/time.


I get what your saying though, a tiny map that has ocean is tiny, you put inland sea on the same grid, and its mostly land, seems like a huge map cause theres no ocean.., but isnt it "standard" size anyway, your telling me this map was a "tiny"?

Not really sure how to extrapolate this new information to other games, but it is nice to know ahead of time i guess, i always try to guesstimate what the cost will be if i settle new cites, but knowing ahead of time might be intersting at some point.

/e also, it seems like SP shouldnt help well, not anymore than it usually does with big empires. I can see when you have 25 cities it helps Just saying that the distances on my cities arnt strange, i dont settle any farther than i would on any other script, i settle good spots, but only as many as i can fit. It would seem like the number of cities should be the real killer. I suppose this map script does force you to spread your cities left and right as opposed to around more often, well idk.

 

[Htadus]

Played this game on Emp normal speed.

Original plan was to expand to 10 cities by 1000BC, the game went.

Spoiler :

Well the game had a different plan. There were not many commerce tiles and the expansion grinded to a halt at 6 cites in 1000BC.

Neighbors

Spoiler :

Met Shaka early and the gold near his capital. Had to get the mad man slowed from growing, so I DoWed to steal his worker after he farmed the Dye. Never asked for peace since we had copper and I used 2 teams of an axe and a warrior to continue capture workers from him. Finally got peace later when he had HBR and I was learning construction to build a few WE which are not the preferred units to go after Impi's. Shaka was limited to 3 cities for a long time.

Met Monti next and wondered if the map was full of Mongers. But then met Zara and Kathy before meeting Hammy and the nut case Napoleon. we never get along.

I was planning to do your basic pointy stick game when...

Spoiler :

My typical builder mentality kicked in. So as a result I built the Oracle for MC, GLib, Mids and several other building in the capital. I wished there were a stone source near by but oh well I could not build any more cities, 12 by 500 AD and 13 by 520AD when Shaka became upset with us.

Tech path

Spoiler :

AH, to BW (switch to slavery), Pottery, to PH for oracle, then to Lit to build GLib, CoL, trade MC for Monarchy, Hunting, IW, Alpha, Currency, trade for Math, learned Music 520 AD and get the free GA

Will continue when I have more time and see how well the GP UU work.

 

[NihilZero]

could you or someone else explain this a bit better? I see what your saying but im still confused by it. Inland sea is one of the largest maps i can think of, why would the game think its tiny..?

Ive never done much map generating, but i thought all of the NC games were standard/standard size/time.


I get what your saying though, a tiny map that has ocean is tiny, you put inland sea on the same grid, and its mostly land, seems like a huge map cause theres no ocean.., but isnt it "standard" size anyway, your telling me this map was a "tiny"?

Not really sure how to extrapolate this new information to other games, but it is nice to know ahead of time i guess, i always try to guesstimate what the cost will be if i settle new cites, but knowing ahead of time might be intersting at some point.

/e also, it seems like SP shouldnt help well, not anymore than it usually does with big empires. I can see when you have 25 cities it helps Just saying that the distances on my cities arnt strange, i dont settle any farther than i would on any other script, i settle good spots, but only as many as i can fit. It would seem like the number of cities should be the real killer. I suppose this map script does force you to spread your cities left and right as opposed to around more often, well idk.

I don't fully understand this myself since how maintenance is calculated is complicated. But, maintenance appears to be scaled to grid size, ie how many tiles there are. The smaller the grid, the higher the distance maintenance.

A simple illustration from worldbuilder:

Fractal map, standard size. I made two cities, 8 tiles apart. Maintenance in the second city at pop 1: Distance Maintenance: 2.66 Number of Cities .56.
At Pop 10: Distance Maintenance: 5.66 Number of cities .84.

Inland sea, also standard size. However, there is almost 50% more land compared to the fractal map, albeit squashed onto a "Tiny" sized board.
Two cities, 8 tiles apart. Maintenance in second city at pop 1: Distance Maintenance: 2.90 Number of cities .56.
At pop 10: Distance Maintenance: 6.13 Number of cities .84.

So, on inland sea distance maintenance is fractionally higher. It's a subtle difference, but it will snowball as your empire grows, and particularly as you start conquering enemy cities that are 12, 16 or 20 tiles from your capital.

This higher maintenance seems counterintuitive on what is a bigger map in terms of settleable land, even though there are much fewer total tiles than the fractal (because the fractal has lots of ocean).

Number of cities maintenance stays the same. But then on a map with so much land you need more cities anyway (or the AIs will take all the land, and on higher levels they pay much less upkeep so it doesn't hurt them) so you'll end up paying a lot of number of cities maintenance anyway.

Conclusion: maintenance is a bugger on inland sea. Distance maintenance is higher because the map is smaller. Number of cities maintenance is also higher, because the map is bigger.

 

[Pengu]

What I really hate is when you have a huge landmass and no commerce. Why?
The Ai's pays 0 maintenance, can easily expand to 15-20 cities with no financial consideration. So they don't need commerce that badly.
For you, even getting 10 cities has a crippling effect on you civ at the best of circumstances.
So either you let the AI's become huge and run away with no effort, or you overextand yourself and fall behind in tech.
Also make for looooong and boring games.
Normally on pangea/fractal/continents it is very rare Ai's have room to get more than maximum 10 cities which is more fair. This mapscript howevre sucks, as it skews it in the Ai's favor.
Then just to ad insult to injury you put the worst unit spamming civ as your neighbour with his capitol on a hill...

 

[Htadus]

It sounds like the Immortal and higher would be very difficult on this map. I am glad I chose Emperor. I can imagine how bad the economy would be on the top two levels. I do not know if anyone noticed but it is the unit supply that really made the map hard. You need have enough units to deter AI from attacking you and then that end up costing you a lot of gold per turn.

This map is challenging. I never realized the facts NihilZero pointed out. Thanks and .

 

[blunderwonder]

@nihl

I see i guess, I thought you meant this was "tiny" map though, like the one you would normally create and end up with only 2 civs total, but with most of the squares land, and added 4 more civs or something to keep the game interesting. I suppose ANY script where most of it is land, your going to get screwed by maintance because clearly the "game" expects to have some ocean or something. Im still a bit confused by the "grid" thing, if that just means tiny/standard/huge etc, i think i get it, but its tough for me to imagine this map is a "tiny", or even the one after that... I suppose you could even stuff out by adding civs.

Interesting though, because at the end of the day, it has some effect on my gameplay...

picture a HUGE map, with continents or something, does that mean i can settle 50 cities, and not have to worry? I mean if this stuff really is that important, it will have some effect on how willing I am to settler spam. I can usually figure how much a city's going to cost, but its nice to know ahead of time if im going to be choppig workers and settlers as opposed to wonders or something.

@pengu, i really like inland sea, i get what your saying with the commerce, but thats luck of the draw i think. Its one of the few map scripts where you only have 2 neighboors, and plenty of ways to cause wars

 

[NihilZero]

It sounds like the Immortal and higher would be very difficult on this map. I am glad I chose Emperor. I can imagine how bad the economy would be on the top two levels. I do not know if anyone noticed but it is the unit supply that really made the map hard. You need have enough units to deter AI from attacking you and then that end up costing you a lot of gold per turn.

This map is challenging. I never realized the facts NihilZero pointed out. Thanks and .

You're welcome . It's not that hard of a map to win, if you're persistent, but it takes a long time, and finishing it off can get to be a bit dull when you've already seen this kind of ending dozens of times before and all the suspense has gone from the game.

I see i guess, I thought you meant this was "tiny" map though, like the one you would normally create and end up with only 2 civs total, but with most of the squares land, and added 4 more civs or something to keep the game interesting. I suppose ANY script where most of it is land, your going to get screwed by maintance because clearly the "game" expects to have some ocean or something. Im still a bit confused by the "grid" thing, if that just means tiny/standard/huge etc, i think i get it, but its tough for me to imagine this map is a "tiny", or even the one after that... I suppose you could even stuff out by adding civs.

Every map is on a grid of square tiles, and each map grid has specific dimensions. On "Standard", an inland sea has the dimensions of 32 tiles high and 52 tiles wide. That happens to be the grid size for "Tiny" on some of the most commonly played map types. Fractal, continents, Archipelago I think, and probably others are all 52x84 on "Standard", but they all have less land than an inland sea.

Pangaea is a bit different. On "Standard" it's 40x64, which is the grid size for "Small" on a lot of map types. Pangaeas actually are a bit smaller, usually in the 700-800 tile range, which makes them quicker to play and somewhat easier.

picture a HUGE map, with continents or something, does that mean i can settle 50 cities, and not have to worry? I mean if this stuff really is that important, it will have some effect on how willing I am to settler spam. I can usually figure how much a city's going to cost, but its nice to know ahead of time if im going to be choppig workers and settlers as opposed to wonders or something.

No, you always have to pay maintenance and it will hurt you once you get over 8+ cities unless you have a lot of income. It's just that inland sea has so much land (1200-1300 tiles) that you pretty much have to settle a ton of cities.

Inland sea maps in general are quite commerce rich because they have a lot of rivers, although the starting position in this game isn't great for commerce.

 

[GGS]

It has been interesting. But slow and steady has just given way to fast and furious.

Spoiler :

The Ottomans added two cities. Ghuzz 1N of the SE iron and Gaziantep 1NW of the sheep by the Russian border (beaten to the horses.) Tech is okay; the barbarians have been difficult. Soldiers 3rd, land 1st, population 2nd. Running HR, bureaucracy, caste and Catherine's Judaism as is Shaka.

Napoleon and Shaka have just DOW'd Suleiman. The WE/axe/spear Army of the East can beat the French HAs and catapults. The stronger Army of the North can profit from war with Shaka.

The Plan? Gunpowder. Suleiman is almost half way through paper.

 

[dalamb]

One mapmaking strategy I used to use, but have been forgetting about lately, is to add an AI or two on maps types with "too much land". I had some scripts that counted actual land tiles to give me a clue about how many to add. I think it worked out to be 2 extra on Highlands (a basically all-land map) but don't recall what it was for inland sea.

 

[tijup]

interesting discussion, thanks for those information.

Dalamb, could you send me these script ? my elisp is rusty, since I haven`t played with emacs since at least 20 years, but I should figure it out without too much trouble.

I was wanting a less easier map for once, I got served I guess.

 

[blunderwonder]

No, you always have to pay maintenance and it will hurt you once you get over 8+ cities unless you have a lot of income. It's just that inland sea has so much land (1200-1300 tiles) that you pretty much have to settle a ton of cities.

I realize the inland sea thing now, but im just saying for other games... extra huge map with tiny continents and high water level... if each city is costing me 1/2 as much as it normally would... it seemed from your examples it scales for both distance and city size.. Just noting that if the map is set up a certain way, it means that I can settle 15 cities, but pay the same maintanance as i would for 8 on inland sea

also, i think 9 is where it "jumps", I have read that article with the distance and # of cities as pertaining to maintenance but it doesnt usually enter my thinking.

I think 9 cities is ocn for standard... but if this map is really a tiny or a small, then even that is too much. Whats annoying is that it goes up to like 9gpt per city or something for # of cities, but it doesnt actually show it, it spreads it out over all your cities which is lame, and after 28 cities on standard, it maxes out at 6gpt for each, + distance maintance ofc.

This is all academic as if im expanding peacefully i just settle as many good cities as i can afford, then settle more when im able, but it is interesting to know ahead of time, cause if i can only settle 6 cities because of the size of the map and # of cities or distance, id probably skip some less productive cities till later. It may not change the overall # of cities i settle, but it has an impact on the order in which i might settle them, and when ofc.

 

[Gumbolt]

I am trying my hand at this. Immortal level. Up to 880ad.

Spoiler :

Settled in place.

Rexxed to 9 cities. Went for a cottage city for second city then a slow third city. Avoided war as best as I could. Took aesth for trades. Once I had writing I started chopping libraries to speed up border pops. Used corn/cow for GP farm.

Russians spread their religion to almost all of my cities. Russians are slight tech leaders in terms of the AI. I have paper - lib on them. Plus Nationalism/MT. 7-8 turns from gunpower so a bit slow.

Probably should of grabbed the gold sooner.

Going to be a tough game as any Ai could back stab me at any point.

Aztecs have just declared on Shaka so this could be good news.

See how things go tomorrow.

 

[GGS]

Spoiler :

The war with Napoleon and Shaka was a question of defeating their field armies. It went rather well, ending in 930 AD. The Ottomans got a Great General and the gold city Nongama.

The wonder failure cash policy was useful - gunpowder is three turns away. Ankara has the Moai Statues, Bursa is working on the Heroic Epic and Konya the National Epic. Three barbarian cities have been acquired in the east where France, Russia and Babylon each snared one.

In 1110 I bribed Shaka into DOWing Montezuma who then declared on Suleiman. I think I can avoid a war in the East but the North needs to be sorted out. We have a very narrow lead in soldiers, land and population.

 

[Izuul]

Well I've always been a Suleiman fan so now that i have some time for a normal game of Civ I'm giving this one a go. Playing on IMM since i haven't played a regular game in some time.

Up to 50 AD:

Spoiler :

I was debating between SIP vs 1E, but when i zoomed in to add barb techs i saw copper 1E. Spoiler alert! Obviously SIP then went AH first for the 4F/2H/1C cow tile followed by Mining and BW. I didn't wait and started on a settler at S2. Knowing that copper was there it may have been stronger to go Mining > BW > AH to get the copper online faster for extra IMP hammers, but i didn't go that route. I settled 2nd city up north for the gold and revolted into Slavery while settler was in transit. I left that city at S1 for quite awhile building a settler at 6HPT. 3rd city went 3E of capitol to share tiles later.

I decided to go for the Oracle after BW going through Med to get there quicker. I finished it in 1640 BC which is usually fairly safe on Immortal and grabbed CoL with it.

Spoiler :

I liked CoL here for Caste specs + easy border pops, and also to spread Confucianism to Shaka with my free missionary since he didn't have a religion. The unfortunate part is that i decided after this to go for an Engineering bulb, but i had already messed that up a little bit by going for Med instead of Poly opening up Philo bulb in the process. This meant rather than bulbing MC > Mach > Eng (or just Mach > Eng) i had to bulb Philo > Mach > Engineering and there was no guarantee i would get 3 scientists with Oracle pollution in GPP pool. I ran 3 scientists in the capitol at S5 working cow and corn while working the copper in 3rd city. I did manage to get lucky getting the first GS at 60-something % and then the next two at a little better than 80%.

Spoiler :

1120 BC i got Alpha from Catherine. I wasn't close to Aesthetics so i traded CoL for it.

Spoiler :

I used some early techs to bribe Monty onto Catherine which set up a delightful world war. I thought there was a decent chance Shaka might get bribed in, but i wasn't expecting this.

Spoiler :

500BC Taoism gets FIDL (turned out to be Catherine). I guess i brought that one on myself by trading CoL and letting it get spread around. I had already painted myself into a corner with the Philo bulb too, so i was pretty much committed to doing it despite not founding the religion and deterring everyone else from the tech.

Spoiler :

The AI was horrifying slow getting Math and stuff so i had an abundance of time to tech MC and save gold for Construction. I even fit 5T Currency in there while waiting. I think i was finally able to trade for Math in 100BC, finished Construction 5T later, and put my bulb into Engineering. I was like 50 beakers short of getting it with just the bulb so 1T later in 50AD i finished it and that's where i stopped.

Spoiler :

Most of my cities have forges and 3 have barracks (probably won't bother in most others). I have 1 xbow finished and i think 1 more + 1 sword due next turn. I have a handful of axes floating around too if i ever free them up. Barracks cities will probably work mostly on trebs from here while others provide the grunts.

Shaka is likely the target since he's closest and... well Shaka. He is pleased with me right now and i haven't used my beg, but Catherine is kind of far away and i don't trust Shaka on my flank while i go the other direction. On these inland sea maps you almost have to commit to going clockwise or counter-clockwise, especially with a 1-move army, and i would much rather have Shaka be 1st target than last. Catherine building Mids or something might change my mind though.

 

[NihilZero]

@ Izuul:

Spoiler :

Starting that world war was a good call, I think, as the AIs can tech pretty fast here if left in peace. Napoleon had Feudalism comfortably in the BCs in my game.

As far as strategic plan goes, you've hit on the great head-scratcher of this map - going after Shaka is a pretty thankless task as his land is rather poor, and it sort of commits you to further warring with Monty. Cathy's goodies are much nicer, but then you have to secure your rear against Shaka. I don't know what the best plan is. I tried to diplo my way out of it with Shak, but you know how that goes...

 

[blunderwonder]

Itll be interesting to see how your game plays out izzul.

curious how an engineering rush will play Oo, you go for feuda right after all that? so many cities so early