New Beta Patch - 1/15

[2506]

My only note here.... Puppets should ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS build walls and castles as their first buildings....period. I can respect arsenals being more of a debate, but a city can't withstand even a few units without those basic defensive buildings.

Can this be hard-coded?

And I've come close to that WC race, but I don't think it was "8" close.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Agreed, this should be hardcoded!

I once lost the World Fair by 0.3 hammers or sth like that, fun stuff

 

[Stalker0]

Standard Deity on Communitas_79 as Portugal (No Tech Trades/Brokering, No Ancient Ruins). DV on Turn 383.

This was a bit of a "cheater's game" as I did a little save skumming, but I don't care it was a ton of fun Feel free to look towards the end of my report, the game gets nuts at the end!

Spoiler :

Early game was barb city, so a lot of the early turns was fumigation of the pests! Rome settled Antium right near me, and proceeded to citadel vaccuum my land! Well trying to out citadel Portugal is a bad idea! So we created this line of citadels literally cutting through the entire border of our nation. Meanwhile I settled Coimbra and Villa Nova de Gaia to the south and east but the Mayans got in a forward settle and managed to cut my roads, so those cities would be doing their own thing for a good portion of the game.

Rome and I started out as enemies and it pretty much went like that for much of the game. With our citadel line neither side had a strong edge on the other, and so it went until Industrial. I had been building towards and Imperalism/Autocracy play, and I was feeling ready to flex some muscle.

The war for Neapolis became a total slog, lasting scores of turns. I made very slow progress pushing in from the East, but anytime I got close to the city I started hitting kill zones and had to pull back. Eventually I was able to get to Ballistics, and with the arrival of both bombers and artillery I finally had the tools I needed. Neapolis fell, and then did the city tug of war for several turns before I could finally secure it.

I was doing exceedingly well in the WC, securing lots of spheres and just generally being a boss, but I was struggling overall. My culture and science were falling behind, and with Rome so strong I wasn't making much ground militarily, and if I attacked anyone else I was as sure as the sunrise going to get a backstab from him. I decided the best course was to try and crush Rome full force, make him a vassal...and then with extra votes I would secure the DV.

I used my generals and lebensraum to surround Antium with my citadels and set up an artillery kill line to wreck the city. Unfortunately Neapolis did not have the defensive buildings it needed to have, and Rome got up a military base just as I was attacking, so the artillery did significantly less damage. Ultimately Neapolish fell, converting my citadels around Antium against me! I was completely crushed.... so I save skummed and tried again

This time I tried for more patience, seeing if I could build up more forces and maybe get a tech advantage towards the goal. Meanwhile I secured World Ideology and United Nations, and won the UN by 8 hammers! I was 7 votes shy of Hegemony, and so pretty much thought the war with Rome was the only way to go.

OOOOOORRRRR WAS IT? I had placed diplomats in Arabia and Greece (the only 2 nations that liked me), and since I was going to war with Rome anyway I thought maybe I could get a little money for my trouble. So I asked Greece, hey man, what would you offer for a war against Rome? Alexander replies, oh nothing much....just 10,000 GOLD, 4 cities, and a Hegemony in MY FAVOR!!!! (HOLY CRAP!!!!). Suddenly I was only 4 votes from Hegemony, and I had an idea.

So I went to Arabia. I had no GPT (cold war had gotten in place earlier, and the only other Autocracy player (Rome) was....indisposed . So what could I possible offer Arabia to secure his perfect 4 votes for Hegemony. Why those same 4 cities Greece just gave me! I had to sweeten the deal with 2 more of my cities, so I gave Arabia 2 cut off cities near the Mayan that weren't doing much for me anyway. But suddenly I had the perfect Hegemony vote, if I could just hold it.

So I went into a more defensive posture, continuously buying diplomats to maintain the 2 CS that I wasn't sphered on, while warring with Rome.


The war with Rome was a lot of fun. We were both full Autocracy, which meant Zeroes were everywhere! We both bombed the crap out of each other, and I got to use Air Sweeps more than I had in the last 15 games. Rome would literally air sweep my 8 AA guns just to get in 2 bombing runs, but heck it still worked. Ultimately I took and then lost Antium, but it was just a delay, just keeping things at bay until the Hegemony vote. Araba did try a push on one CS, but I was already well prepared and kept it safe. Hegemony came around, and I snag a DV out of nowhere. A true Dark Horse win!

My notes:

1) The AI does not seem to understand the Air Sweep mechanic that damages planes in cities. He had probably twice the zeroes I had at one point, and I wasn't using mine for interception, so he should have been able to wreck my planes inside my base.

2) While this was a fun game, I did win because Greece gave in to a stupidly ridiculous deal. The Arabia deal was fine, I paid for that vote in blood, but I should never have been given so much from Greece for a simple war declaration, even if Rome was top dog.

3) Is the graphical change for planes (instead of a number they have graphics hanging on top of the city) intentional or a bug? If its intentional....change it back It is really quite annoying to deal with when you have 6 planes, a garrison, and some workers all hanging out in the same city and your trying to find that one key plane you need. The number up top was much smoother.

4) I'm liking how with diplomacy I'm seeing more group behavior. Like this game, Arabia and Greece were my buddies, while Rome and Spain were my evil nemesis. And that stayed pretty consistent most of the game, which I liked quite a bit.

 

[Grassland Farm]

I'm having a bit of a weird game with a lot of brokered wars on me. Which of course is part of the game (and luckily I'm in settled on an incredibly defensible island), but I'll see how it keeps unfolding as the game goes on.

Also I'm not sure how to feel about the fact you can tell a war is brokered even without a Spy finding out about it - If you can't make Peace because of "a deal made with another player", then yep you know somebody did some cloak&dagger action to get you in a war. It kinda... ruins the immersion, you know?
... To be fair I should likely disable bribed wars. Dunno.
I'm playing a fairly Tall Korea going for SV, and I'm very much looking forward to how the Congress will unfold with this in mind.

 

[Recursive]

Also I'm not sure how to feel about the fact you can tell a war is brokered even without a Spy finding out about it - If you can't make Peace because of "a deal made with another player", then yep you know somebody did some cloak&dagger action to get you in a war. It kinda... ruins the immersion, you know?

I'll fix this eventually but it's difficult with how the code works.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Recursive, I don't play with tech trading enabled, but is it still possible to trade techs for lump sum gold or did you change that as well?

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

@Stalker0
Man, I have never playing Deity [Immortal is still a bit challenging] before but this makes me really want to step up my game and buckle up to test stuff like this.

 

[Recursive]

Recursive, I don't play with tech trading enabled, but is it still possible to trade techs for lump sum gold or did you change that as well?

Yes, in fact you can do it now without a Declaration of Friendship.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Thanks for the reply. But hopefully it's no longer able to trade for it for GPT, only for lump sum, right, to prevent exploits with declaring a war soon after trading for a tech for GPT?

 

[2506]

Standard Deity on Communitas_79 as Portugal (No Tech Trades/Brokering, No Ancient Ruins). DV on Turn 383.

This was a bit of a "cheater's game" as I did a little save skumming, but I don't care it was a ton of fun Feel free to look towards the end of my report, the game gets nuts at the end!

Spoiler :

View attachment 583926

Early game was barb city, so a lot of the early turns was fumigation of the pests! Rome settled Antium right near me, and proceeded to citadel vaccuum my land! Well trying to out citadel Portugal is a bad idea! So we created this line of citadels literally cutting through the entire border of our nation. Meanwhile I settled Coimbra and Villa Nova de Gaia to the south and east but the Mayans got in a forward settle and managed to cut my roads, so those cities would be doing their own thing for a good portion of the game.

Rome and I started out as enemies and it pretty much went like that for much of the game. With our citadel line neither side had a strong edge on the other, and so it went until Industrial. I had been building towards and Imperalism/Autocracy play, and I was feeling ready to flex some muscle.

The war for Neapolis became a total slog, lasting scores of turns. I made very slow progress pushing in from the East, but anytime I got close to the city I started hitting kill zones and had to pull back. Eventually I was able to get to Ballistics, and with the arrival of both bombers and artillery I finally had the tools I needed. Neapolis fell, and then did the city tug of war for several turns before I could finally secure it.

I was doing exceedingly well in the WC, securing lots of spheres and just generally being a boss, but I was struggling overall. My culture and science were falling behind, and with Rome so strong I wasn't making much ground militarily, and if I attacked anyone else I was as sure as the sunrise going to get a backstab from him. I decided the best course was to try and crush Rome full force, make him a vassal...and then with extra votes I would secure the DV.

I used my generals and lebensraum to surround Antium with my citadels and set up an artillery kill line to wreck the city. Unfortunately Neapolis did not have the defensive buildings it needed to have, and Rome got up a military base just as I was attacking, so the artillery did significantly less damage. Ultimately Neapolish fell, converting my citadels around Antium against me! I was completely crushed.... so I save skummed and tried again

This time I tried for more patience, seeing if I could build up more forces and maybe get a tech advantage towards the goal. Meanwhile I secured World Ideology and United Nations, and won the UN by 8 hammers! I was 7 votes shy of Hegemony, and so pretty much thought the war with Rome was the only way to go.

OOOOOORRRRR WAS IT? I had placed diplomats in Arabia and Greece (the only 2 nations that liked me), and since I was going to war with Rome anyway I thought maybe I could get a little money for my trouble. So I asked Greece, hey man, what would you offer for a war against Rome? Alexander replies, oh nothing much....just 10,000 GOLD, 4 cities, and a Hegemony in MY FAVOR!!!! (HOLY CRAP!!!!). Suddenly I was only 4 votes from Hegemony, and I had an idea.

So I went to Arabia. I had no GPT (cold war had gotten in place earlier, and the only other Autocracy player (Rome) was....indisposed . So what could I possible offer Arabia to secure his perfect 4 votes for Hegemony. Why those same 4 cities Greece just gave me! I had to sweeten the deal with 2 more of my cities, so I gave Arabia 2 cut off cities near the Mayan that weren't doing much for me anyway. But suddenly I had the perfect Hegemony vote, if I could just hold it.

So I went into a more defensive posture, continuously buying diplomats to maintain the 2 CS that I wasn't sphered on, while warring with Rome.


The war with Rome was a lot of fun. We were both full Autocracy, which meant Zeroes were everywhere! We both bombed the crap out of each other, and I got to use Air Sweeps more than I had in the last 15 games. Rome would literally air sweep my 8 AA guns just to get in 2 bombing runs, but heck it still worked. Ultimately I took and then lost Antium, but it was just a delay, just keeping things at bay until the Hegemony vote. Araba did try a push on one CS, but I was already well prepared and kept it safe. Hegemony came around, and I snag a DV out of nowhere. A true Dark Horse win!

My notes:

1) The AI does not seem to understand the Air Sweep mechanic that damages planes in cities. He had probably twice the zeroes I had at one point, and I wasn't using mine for interception, so he should have been able to wreck my planes inside my base.

2) While this was a fun game, I did win because Greece gave in to a stupidly ridiculous deal. The Arabia deal was fine, I paid for that vote in blood, but I should never have been given so much from Greece for a simple war declaration, even if Rome was top dog.

3) Is the graphical change for planes (instead of a number they have graphics hanging on top of the city) intentional or a bug? If its intentional....change it back It is really quite annoying to deal with when you have 6 planes, a garrison, and some workers all hanging out in the same city and your trying to find that one key plane you need. The number up top was much smoother.

4) I'm liking how with diplomacy I'm seeing more group behavior. Like this game, Arabia and Greece were my buddies, while Rome and Spain were my evil nemesis. And that stayed pretty consistent most of the game, which I liked quite a bit.

Great account. How did you maintain a big enough military for full-scale war with so few cities? Imperialism/Autocracy?

 

[LifeOfBrian]

2506, I think it's because Portugal generates so many great generals by its UA.

 

[Recursive]

Thanks for the reply. But hopefully it's no longer able to trade for it for GPT, only for lump sum, right, to prevent exploits with declaring a war soon after trading for a tech for GPT?

That *is* still possible.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Hmm, then I'd recommend changing that, because civ A can trade combustion to civ B for 120 gpt, only for civ B to declare war on civ A 5 turns later, nullyfing the 120gpt but retaining the benefits/traded technology?

 

[Solic]

Hmm, then I'd recommend changing that, because civ A can trade combustion to civ B for 120 gpt, only for civ B to declare war on civ A 5 turns later, nullyfing the 120gpt but retaining the benefits/traded technology?

It'd be more interesting to give a higher negative diplo opinion modifier for warring under such trade agreements. They exist for declaring war under DoF, so it's probably feasible, albeit possibly complex. It could scale based on deal value and/or turns remaining. Probably hard to tune though.

 

[LifeOfBrian]

Solic, interesting idea, but then you have to take into account DoWs that come involuntarily, for example because of a defensive pact

 

[Stalker0]

@Stalker0
Man, I have never playing Deity [Immortal is still a bit challenging] before but this makes me really want to step up my game and buckle up to test stuff like this.

I was the same way! Honestly I didn't think I would be ready for deity but once I took the plunge honestly it hasn't been that bad. The trick is, you are already playing against the best AI in Immortal, now its just that with some more bonuses. Its definately a step up but it was not the "omg what have I done to myself" level of difficulty I had expected.

 

[Stalker0]

Great account. How did you maintain a big enough military for full-scale war with so few cities? Imperialism/Autocracy?

I did have 2 more cities most of the game, that was part of my last minute deal with Arabia. That said, Imperalism and Autocracy plus the innumerable GGs and GAs from Portugal's UA means you never will have supply problems.

 

[Kim Dong Un]

Nice to see the AI utilizing the new canal system. Rome's navy used a series of them to help conquer Carthage's northern coastal cities.

Spoiler :

 

[SuperNoobCamper]

Unlike forts, citadels do not work as one tile canals between sea and lakes.

 

[DukeBrani]

Unlike forts, citadels do not work as one tile canals between sea and lakes.

That seems silly. Is there a reason for that?