I cannot, for the life of me, make it through a culture game if there is a single domi centric civ nearby. Even if i build walls and enough units someone on the other side of the world makes a deal for everyone else around me to declare war on me as well. (immortal byzanthium) early military focus feels like the only way to establish a strong enough foothold to then branch into something else.
It just feels like a why me situation when ghandi is rubbing two sticks together literally right there next to america.
I cannot, for the life of me, make it through a culture game if there is a single domi centric civ nearby. Even if i build walls and enough units someone on the other side of the world makes a deal for everyone else around me to declare war on me as well. (immortal byzanthium) early military focus feels like the only way to establish a strong enough foothold to then branch into something else.
It just feels like a why me situation when ghandi is rubbing two sticks together literally right there next to america.
Its hit or miss for me, the last few games I am seeing that same behavior, where its like everyone in the world wants me dead, sanctions in the WC (or attempts at least), constant bribed wars. I am dead last in score, tech, culture...everything. My assumption is they think I'm weak (it would be really nice to see that as a diplomacy modifier), but I've held off about 8 wars now and I'm still going strong But yeah its like a ping pong ball, one civ declares, then another, another, then the first one again, etc.
But its not always this way, I have had several games where people were friendly, treated me nice. The thing is...I don't know what I did differently, its not even different civs necessarily, civs that were buddies with me last game just want my throat in the new game, and I don't really understand why.
That said, the key is defensive city placement. Its the most important thing for a city on Immortal+, the yields are second to this. Unless you can create a solid defensive line at a city, don't bother, else it will be under constant threat the entire game. With a strong defense, doesn't matter how many times they declare, you just sit back and let them die against your wall of death.
That said, the key is defensive city placement. Its the most important thing for a city on Immortal+, the yields are second to this. Unless you can create a solid defensive line at a city, don't bother, else it will be under constant threat the entire game. With a strong defense, doesn't matter how many times they declare, you just sit back and let them die against your wall of death.
I've been playing this patch recently quite a bit and frankly I don't post much because i typically only play on King. I always assume i can improve a bit if I wanted to. That being said though has anyone else had some crazy run aways recently? Like since ive had VP ive had some losses where the AI was up like.....5 or 10 techs at max. I just however finished a game where Korea was up by 22 techs. 18 techs by the second best. I went ahead and finished out the game doing a full autocracy run to their gates. Unfortunately I was stopped before he got a SV. (He was across the globe)
Side note here: Not only did Korea stomp his way to win, but none of his neighbors or anyone fired a shot trying to stop him.
In the same game i played peacefully and the one time i declared war I had the majority of the other players declare on me creating a multi front war. (Which was strange because this also happens frequently anymore. I can be middle of the pack or dead last and it still happens.) Which probably had slowed me down but it has never been this bad. (I say this because the dog piling seems more frequent)
That all being said though the other games ive attempted end up having a run away. I typically have left the game before playing it out. I went ahead and ran this one because I wanted to see how bad it was.
I don't have a save file or anything, or even SS's. I am not saying "its bugged I can't be this bad at the game!! Its the AIs fault!!!" but I have never been stomped so bad until recently. I used to be able to comfortable beat King most of the time.
Anyone else have these experiences or do I just need to completely rethink how I am playing?
(Also as a side note, I am not trying to min max the game or anything, i simply choose King because it is relaxed enough but yet i still have to think. So I am not necessarily trying to be the best or anything)
I've been playing this patch recently quite a bit and frankly I don't post much because i typically only play on King. I always assume i can improve a bit if I wanted to. That being said though has anyone else had some crazy run aways recently? Like since ive had VP ive had some losses where the AI was up like.....5 or 10 techs at max. I just however finished a game where Korea was up by 22 techs. 18 techs by the second best. I went ahead and finished out the game doing a full autocracy run to their gates. Unfortunately I was stopped before he got a SV. (He was across the globe)
Side note here: Not only did Korea stomp his way to win, but none of his neighbors or anyone fired a shot trying to stop him.
In the same game i played peacefully and the one time i declared war I had the majority of the other players declare on me creating a multi front war. (Which was strange because this also happens frequently anymore. I can be middle of the pack or dead last and it still happens.) Which probably had slowed me down but it has never been this bad. (I say this because the dog piling seems more frequent)
That all being said though the other games ive attempted end up having a run away. I typically have left the game before playing it out. I went ahead and ran this one because I wanted to see how bad it was.
I don't have a save file or anything, or even SS's. I am not saying "its bugged I can't be this bad at the game!! Its the AIs fault!!!" but I have never been stomped so bad until recently. I used to be able to comfortable beat King most of the time.
Anyone else have these experiences or do I just need to completely rethink how I am playing?
(Also as a side note, I am not trying to min max the game or anything, i simply choose King because it is relaxed enough but yet i still have to think. So I am not necessarily trying to be the best or anything)
It would be really interesting to know if the AI had a massive increase in science just after entering a new era. I had a game some months ago where some of the the AI's got so much free bonusses from entering a new era (don't remember what they're called, but they get bonusses from settling capital/other cities, entering new eras etc.) that they more or less finished the next era in a few turns (one tech per turn I think). I tried to report it but as I use a lot of mods I couldn't rule out conflicts and when I ran some testing I couldn't reproduce it - the logs showed it though (as did Infoaddict).
Standard Communitas_79 (no Ancient Ruins, No Tech Trading/Brokering) with Immortal Morocco. Game Stopped (due to CTDs) on Turn 452.
Spoiler:
So if you look at the turn timer you'll note its not one of my usual games So jdevo was asking about city specialization in VP, and in general the mod assumes that most of your cities are going to have all of the main buildings in them (with the exception of some late game buildings).
But I realized I haven't challenged that assumption in a long time, so my goal this game was to do an old school Infinite City Spam, focusing on science specialization, to see if I could make a game work where the majority of my city were just science producers with barely any good buildings in them. Aka can I make an SV work with "garbage" cities?
Summary of the Plan
Spoiler:
I dropped back down to Immortal for the challenge. I choose Morocco because the Kasbah can make any terrain useful, and it will help cover my massive culture debt that will accrue for basic ignoring the culture buildings in most of my cities. I took commerce early, as this kind of city spam works exceedingly well with Commerce to generate lots of faith and provide me needed goal to cover the minimal infrastructure. I later grabbed Apostolic Palace and Churches, again trying to cover for some of my culture debt with religion while my cities went pure science.
Policy wise I went Fealty as its good for wide play, and the -1 urbanization is going to be solid for my specialist focus. I later went Rationalism and Order for heavy science focus.
So after founding my capital, I would count off 4 hexes, build a road there, and then plop down a city. Rinse and Repeat. While I might adjust a hex or two for terrain, as you can see on the screenshot, I really wasn't that picky. I went through 3 phases with all of my satellites.
1) Grow to 4 size and stop. Build Monument, Shrine, Walls, Council, Library...run library specialist.
2) (After Chivalry) Grow to size 8 and stop. Build University, Castle, Barracks, Armory, Shrine, Temple. Run Library and University specialist. Build Kasbahs everywhere!
3) (After landmarks) Uncap growth. Build Public School and Observatories. Run as many specialist as food allowed.
In Phase 1, I stop my cities at size 4 as otherwise they would start generating too much unhappiness to be useful. This was where the bulk of my expanding occurred, getting up to 9-10 cities in total. Happiness was a definite bottleneck, and I had to manage it well, often buying every lux I could get my hands on using the extra gold from commerce. My religion was a powerhouse, by the time I was on my 8th city, my pressure was great enough that my new cities converted within 1-2 turns.
In Phase 2, now with Kasbahs rounding off my yields and my expansion slowed, I managed to unlock my cities for a time to grow them up. The goal was to work the 6 Kasbah spots + 2 specialists each. I added in Barracks and Armories to both address the new unhappiness but also for my long term military supply needs. I also added enough cities to get to 12. At this point, my experience (and math analysis) has shown me that past this point more cities is generally a detraction from science, as each city has to generate an additional 5% of your entire science production to break even, and your capital is always going to produce a big portion of your science, even with this strategy.
In Phase 3, the arrival of landmarks gives me a big boost to Global Happiness. At this point, my happiness in each city will equal its population (at least until its gets a high population), so as long as I control for urbanization, I am no longer worried about unhappiness. I take off the brakes and let the cities do their thing.
My Mistakes
Spoiler:
I honestly played this game pretty casually, hehe after playing on Deity for a while it was a fun break to return to Immortal but ultimately as I played I found several mistakes and realized ways to do this better.
1) Even with 12 cities I didn't get a monopoly this game....uh whoops. I was very confused when it came time to make my corporation!
2) Ultimately I made 1 capital and the rest satellites and that simply wasn't enough. For a long time I was desperate for hammers for more troops, diplomacy units, etc. My satellites still had unhappiness and their small production meant they were not good unit producers in phase 1. I got very lucky that I made friends with Egypt and had a defensive pact running....as if America had wanted to, there were windows he could have crushed me. So what I should have done was make 2 other "good" cities, and then the rest satellites, that would have given me a stronger foundation, and give me the needed production for SS parts in the end game.
3) Infrastructure wise I tried to keep things as minimal as possible, which I think was a mistake. I think a few more buildings...Granary, Well/Watermill, Aqueduct would have helped the cities develop and grow a lot faster. I found that went I took the cap off in phase 2....the cities really struggled to get to size 8. It would also have been nice to have Grocers later on for that extra +1 happy, which could have let me grow a little stronger.
4) There were a lot of woods around some of my cities, which I left as lumber mills but I think in hindsight I should have farmed them. Growth was slow and I struggled with several satellites to work all of my specialists once Public Schools and Observatories were in play.
5) I used my TRs as ETRs pretty much from the onset, as the attraction of the Moroccan bonus is very appealing. But again in hindsight, I really wish I had focused on ITRs for at least the first third of the game. I needed a strong capital to carry the load for all of these "crappy" cities, and my capital just wasn't what it could be. I think some more attention to grooming the city was needed (as well as 2 other decent cities), and then I could be off to the races later on.
6) I noted about the Apostolic Palace belief that I had forgotten. For it to work, you must do an active religion spread. The problem was my new cities were converting organically so quickly that I stopped getting the bonus!
Game Report
So early on I scored solid diplomacy with Egypt, and managed to get a DP with him. This kept America in check long enough for me to get my castles in place on my northern front, and when America attacked Egypt and I were able to repel him. This lasted all game, America would buddy up, get big again, and then come storming down from the north. But Egypt and I had an eternal bond, and a strong line that could not be breached.
I struggled in the early game, happiness was on a tightrope, and hammers were so tight because I needed a lot of settlers, workers, and military units to get everything in place. But as things settled, I got a big influx of gold and was able to stabilize.
So for a long time the plan worked well, surprisingly well considering how many mistakes I made (see above). I was top in science as I had expected, but my culture was also decent as well, and I was just 1 policy off from the leader most of the time. I made good use of the religion belief that lets you ignore 1 policy requirement for wonders, which kept me fully competitive on them. I was making friends with a lot of the world, and going towards the end of the Modern Era things were looking good.
Then as we started the move to Information, things were looking more dicey. For a long time, I had a flood of GS, generally I tried to produce 1 in every city (that didn't' work, but I made a lot of them). combined with a large faith pool for buying more GS, I was competitive. That flood dwindled in the end game, and now civs that had invested longer were catching up....and surpassing me. Portugal especially was surging ahead on tech.
The world was getting more competitive as we neared endgame, and the old niceties were gone. America was building a large modern army on my border, and my money was not what it once was to instant upgrade my forces.
Ultimately I had to stop the game on Turn 452 as I was getting constant CTDs. My current scenario was: I had just gotten sanctioned, I just lost hubble to Maria, and America is frothing at the mouth again. So ultimately I think this would end in a loss.
My notes:
1) So while I do think this will be a loss, I was surprised at how well it actually worked. I may try this again having taken lessons learned and see if it can be truly viable.
2) Want to know how strong Orthodoxy really is? My 12 city + church + fealty (aka +50% pressure when I'm not in majority) was about equal to America + Stupa + Orthodoxy in pressure in his cities. Ortho is really really strong.
3) Its always funny to see how different the game experience can be turn wise. My last SV was on Turn 340. We are in Turn 452 and haven't finish the tree yet, and we have been running the +33% GS policy in the WC for most of the game!!! It seems that the civs on this map are content to get big and tech slow....which may explain why my strat was still competitive even with my mistakes. I actually wondered if we would hit the Turn 500 cutoff before the spaceship. Probably not as Maria just got hubble but its a possibility.
4) I kept checking periodically on whether the number of cities I had was a science "boon" or "detraction". The answer was close, 12 cities was right about where the last cities isn't paying for itself, so that's a good ballpark metric as to how much ICS you should do to be efficient.
Is it intentional that things like damage rolls and gold pillaged from cities change on every reload? I know combat calculations and such have changed over time, but for a long time reloading and playing out the same actions on the same turn would yield the same results. Now, reloading and performing the same initial action can produce some pretty different results. It's fine if that's the case, just wondering what's changed. I am playing Songhai so I'm guessing the variance for gold pillaged from cities (375 in ancient era +/- ~100 over several tests) will be triple the norm, but that can be quite a bit of variance. I save often and reload from mistakes/misclicks so it's helpful when the RNG doesn't change in the same turn. I know there was some recent discussion about the "random seed" being looked at, not sure if it would affect these same-turn calculations or not.
Is it intentional that things like damage rolls and gold pillaged from cities change on every reload? I know combat calculations and such have changed over time, but for a long time reloading and playing out the same actions on the same turn would yield the same results. Now, reloading and performing the same initial action can produce some pretty different results. It's fine if that's the case, just wondering what's changed. I am playing Songhai so I'm guessing the variance for gold pillaged from cities (375 in ancient era +/- ~100 over several tests) will be triple the norm, but that can be quite a bit of variance. I save often and reload from mistakes/misclicks so it's helpful when the RNG doesn't change in the same turn. I know there was some recent discussion about the "random seed" being looked at, not sure if it would affect these same-turn calculations or not.
OK, thanks. Is this also the case for damage calculations? I recall in the past changing your attack order would change the result but the same attack order would have the same results. Is it calculated on each individual attack now or is this just reflective of the same overall RNG change? I believe this is also the case for ancient ruins, in the past taking the ruin with the same unit would give the same bonus but using a different unit or on a different turn or collecting ruins in a different order would change but now the result will change with the same unit. Sorry for the digression, these all seem to have changed recently and just trying to demystify the black box a bit
OK, thanks. Is this also the case for damage calculations? I recall in the past changing your attack order would change the result but the same attack order would have the same results. Is it calculated on each individual attack now or is this just reflective of the same overall RNG change? I believe this is also the case for ancient ruins, in the past taking the ruin with the same unit would give the same bonus but using a different unit or on a different turn or collecting ruins in a different order would change but now the result will change with the same unit. Sorry for the digression, these all seem to have changed recently and just trying to demystify the black box a bit
ilteroi changed the fake RNG so that it depends on "turn slice" recently, based on the name I presume it's a fraction of a turn. That's probably why. But it shouldn't cause desyncs.
ilteroi changed the fake RNG so that it depends on "turn slice" recently, based on the name I presume it's a fraction of a turn. That's probably why. But it shouldn't cause desyncs.
Gotcha, that explains a lot. This patch is excellent as always, by the way, but I will pile on to the "gigachad Orthodoxy" bandwagon. As a passive belief it appears to obliterate every other source of pressure, though I suspect it's most effective in conjunction with a tech snowball and bee-lining Printing Press, which is already a great strategy for hosting WC, etc.
Non stopping wars with everyone in the world (now one after another, but still). Why we don`t take into consideration who declared war on who when calculating warmonger? I mean 3 AI waged war on me, any city i captured from them was at the time of war they declared on me and in the end - I`m a dreadful warmonger that need to be stopped... nice USA logic much?
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But yeah its like a ping pong ball, one civ declares, then another, another, then the first one again, etc.
So jdevo was asking about city specialization in VP, and in general the mod assumes that most of your cities are going to have all of the main buildings in them (with the exception of some late game buildings).
