You could also move mine fields to dynamite, so they are a little more prevalent during the big ironclad/cruiser pushes the AI likes to do.
New Official Version - December 1st (12-1)
- Thread starter Gazebo
- Start date
- Status
You could also move mine fields to dynamite, so they are a little more prevalent during the big ironclad/cruiser pushes the AI likes to do.
The conclusion: My last southern city held out for a good long while, but its fall was inevitable against such might.
Spoiler :
Field Guns/Artillery do better against naval units than Gatling Guns/Machine Guns. It does take up precious Iron that you might want to spend on ranged ships though.
I still think ships shouldn't have that much higher CS compared to land units, and those promotions against cities are too strong (125%? Seriously?)
I still think ships shouldn't have that much higher CS compared to land units, and those promotions against cities are too strong (125%? Seriously?)
RedHotTomato
Chieftain
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2017
- Messages
- 49
Just a tip for deity, always settle vulnerable coastal city on tiles where there is only 1 attack direction from sea.
Standard Emperor with Morocco on Communitas 79. Lost (surrender) on Turn 410.
A truly wonderful game by the AI, a testament to the mod teams' work.
I was in the driver's seat for a lot of this game. If you had looked at me at Renaissance, you might have thought I had it in the bag. I was top in score, had nearly every CS as my ally, top techs and culture....I looked like I was cruising for a DV, with an SV as backup. But the AI would have none of that!
Portugal and Denmark started carving up the world as you can see on the minimap, and slowly and steadily their culture and science picked up. They went Order late game (I took Freedom as I was the first to ideology). And the ENTIRE rest of the world went Order!! Suffice it to say I didn't have many friends by the end game. As the game progressed, Portugal and Denmark both used order to eclipse me in science, and now had military forces that were both more numerous and stronger than mine. I already talked about how they took out my southern islands in earlier postings. However, I still had one ace in the hole. While my tech was sluggish, I made a beeline for the key DV techs. I had 4 votes over what I needed for hegemony once UN was in place, and with so many people going order, throwing up the World Ideology (Order) was an easy sell. If I could hold out for 10 turns, I still had my shot at the victory.
But oh AI, you are crafty! With but a handful of turns left, the AI took out not 1, not 2, but 3 of my CS allies! I watched helplessly as my vote total steadily dropped, and now I was 2 short. With 20 turns before I could try again, and the bees now swarming me, I decided to call it.
1) Diplomatically the AI played well to counter. For every sphere I put in for myself, I was countered with an open door on my ally, a counter sphere, or a sanction on me. So it forced me to really play my votes to my priorities.
2) I am seeing what other people seeing, that its now the war AIs that have their time in the sun, and instead of science/culture peacenik runaways, I am generally seeing military dominance over large regions. Its a nice change of pace, and again showcases how much the tactical and strategic AIs have improved. Of course now the question is has it gone too far, and peace civs will need a little buff to compensate? More games are needed to tell, but I can see the possibility.
3) This game once again shows me that you really can't look at your position in the mid game and call a win, the AI really does ramp up hard in the later game if given the chance.
4) I tried something this game, something I haven't done in years. I actually switched my Ideology. I was -44 happiness due to pressure, and decided to give it a shot. Its an interesting trade off going from freedom to order. While I lost 3 turns and 5 tenants, which is significant (5 tenants!), order gives me a lot of immediate benefits. I got:
a) 2 immediate techs
b) A GS (which was about half a tech). Even with the buff from Rationalism, it seems the loss of science from the anarchy really hurts their yields.
c) 5 research labs (I only had 1 in my capital), plus the science bonus there.
d) My corp was resurrected (I had been under sanctions for a time).
e) 44 happiness.
However, I made a big mistake, and didn't take any of the order happiness policies. So even though I gained 44 happiness, I lost way more and actually dropped from 43% to 31% happiness. Doh!
5) I mentioned this in the balance thread, but just to reiterate it again. I think Destroyers need an AA defense tonedown, taking 30 damage on every attack + the threat of an interception is too much. Destroyers are supposed to be a reasonable AA option not a major AA deterrent. I don't mind the interception but I think the base AA defense should go down to 20 or something. Also, the AA gun remains WAY WAY WAY too good. It just shuts down airplay hard, and there is no good counter to it. I think its a bug, but the thing can even intercept you while its embarked! I think its AA range should be dropped from 3 to 2....there is no reason to build triplanes when I have these things around.
6) I still think the gold sink in the Industrial level is a bit too hard, I will commonly be in negative GPT long before I fill up my supply cap, unless I use the key order policies that reduce building maintenance.
7) In general the dealmaking this game was pretty good. I did get a few crazy declare war offers that were way too cheap to consider, but the lux and strategic prices felt reasonable (the strategics were valued around 5-7 GPt early which in a normal game would be way too high, but I was playing with sparse strategics so they were much more valuable).
8) Pioneers upgrade cost has gotten a little better, but its still way cheaper to upgrade a settler than build a pioneer outright. Also interesting, upgrading a pioneer to a colonist is about half the price of a settler to pioneer, that seems strange.
9) Happiness was "ok" this game. I varied around 41-66% most of the game. I generally was under 50% but I never dipped into rebellion.
10) I am noticing a general "erosion" of religion in the late game. As others have noted, sometimes late pressures get quite high, and main religion gets pushed aside for the new comer. What I generally see on these water heavy maps is less conversion and more that the cities have no religion, as no one can get a majority. In some ways that is thematically appropriate, but I know some have complained about religious pressure and I can somewhat understand why.
Spoiler :
A truly wonderful game by the AI, a testament to the mod teams' work.
I was in the driver's seat for a lot of this game. If you had looked at me at Renaissance, you might have thought I had it in the bag. I was top in score, had nearly every CS as my ally, top techs and culture....I looked like I was cruising for a DV, with an SV as backup. But the AI would have none of that!
Portugal and Denmark started carving up the world as you can see on the minimap, and slowly and steadily their culture and science picked up. They went Order late game (I took Freedom as I was the first to ideology). And the ENTIRE rest of the world went Order!! Suffice it to say I didn't have many friends by the end game. As the game progressed, Portugal and Denmark both used order to eclipse me in science, and now had military forces that were both more numerous and stronger than mine. I already talked about how they took out my southern islands in earlier postings. However, I still had one ace in the hole. While my tech was sluggish, I made a beeline for the key DV techs. I had 4 votes over what I needed for hegemony once UN was in place, and with so many people going order, throwing up the World Ideology (Order) was an easy sell. If I could hold out for 10 turns, I still had my shot at the victory.
But oh AI, you are crafty! With but a handful of turns left, the AI took out not 1, not 2, but 3 of my CS allies! I watched helplessly as my vote total steadily dropped, and now I was 2 short. With 20 turns before I could try again, and the bees now swarming me, I decided to call it.
1) Diplomatically the AI played well to counter. For every sphere I put in for myself, I was countered with an open door on my ally, a counter sphere, or a sanction on me. So it forced me to really play my votes to my priorities.
2) I am seeing what other people seeing, that its now the war AIs that have their time in the sun, and instead of science/culture peacenik runaways, I am generally seeing military dominance over large regions. Its a nice change of pace, and again showcases how much the tactical and strategic AIs have improved. Of course now the question is has it gone too far, and peace civs will need a little buff to compensate? More games are needed to tell, but I can see the possibility.
3) This game once again shows me that you really can't look at your position in the mid game and call a win, the AI really does ramp up hard in the later game if given the chance.
4) I tried something this game, something I haven't done in years. I actually switched my Ideology. I was -44 happiness due to pressure, and decided to give it a shot. Its an interesting trade off going from freedom to order. While I lost 3 turns and 5 tenants, which is significant (5 tenants!), order gives me a lot of immediate benefits. I got:
a) 2 immediate techs
b) A GS (which was about half a tech). Even with the buff from Rationalism, it seems the loss of science from the anarchy really hurts their yields.
c) 5 research labs (I only had 1 in my capital), plus the science bonus there.
d) My corp was resurrected (I had been under sanctions for a time).
e) 44 happiness.
However, I made a big mistake, and didn't take any of the order happiness policies. So even though I gained 44 happiness, I lost way more and actually dropped from 43% to 31% happiness. Doh!
5) I mentioned this in the balance thread, but just to reiterate it again. I think Destroyers need an AA defense tonedown, taking 30 damage on every attack + the threat of an interception is too much. Destroyers are supposed to be a reasonable AA option not a major AA deterrent. I don't mind the interception but I think the base AA defense should go down to 20 or something. Also, the AA gun remains WAY WAY WAY too good. It just shuts down airplay hard, and there is no good counter to it. I think its a bug, but the thing can even intercept you while its embarked! I think its AA range should be dropped from 3 to 2....there is no reason to build triplanes when I have these things around.
6) I still think the gold sink in the Industrial level is a bit too hard, I will commonly be in negative GPT long before I fill up my supply cap, unless I use the key order policies that reduce building maintenance.
7) In general the dealmaking this game was pretty good. I did get a few crazy declare war offers that were way too cheap to consider, but the lux and strategic prices felt reasonable (the strategics were valued around 5-7 GPt early which in a normal game would be way too high, but I was playing with sparse strategics so they were much more valuable).
8) Pioneers upgrade cost has gotten a little better, but its still way cheaper to upgrade a settler than build a pioneer outright. Also interesting, upgrading a pioneer to a colonist is about half the price of a settler to pioneer, that seems strange.
9) Happiness was "ok" this game. I varied around 41-66% most of the game. I generally was under 50% but I never dipped into rebellion.
10) I am noticing a general "erosion" of religion in the late game. As others have noted, sometimes late pressures get quite high, and main religion gets pushed aside for the new comer. What I generally see on these water heavy maps is less conversion and more that the cities have no religion, as no one can get a majority. In some ways that is thematically appropriate, but I know some have complained about religious pressure and I can somewhat understand why.
I'm curious, does anyone know what isolation penalties generally scale to for a mid size city? I am wondering if it might be worth it to settle colonies off water, just to give them safety, even if it means taking the isolation penalty.
IIRC, it's 1 unhappiness per 4 isolated population.
I'm going to win my game soon (maybe this weekend since I don't play on weekdays). I'll compare each point with my own experience when I do.
LifeOfBrian
King
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
- Messages
- 757
Stalker, may I ask why did you settle that island city in the first place? Island cities aren't that great for Morocco, being focused on tall tradition/artistry/rationalism play? Also, I think if you did settle this island, a better location would have been on the stone tile (two tiles southeast), that would have given you place for 5 kasbahs and would have limited access to hostile naval units, while giving yourself more tiles to station your ranged units in to fend off naval attacks.
Looking at your main cities, my advice would be to not settle so many coastal cities and I'd settle the coastal cities in more defensible positions. For example I'd settle Tangier inland oron the unworked plains tile east of the three-tile lake, then I'd create a network of roads on the tiles to the south so that I could use an army of rotating skirmishers to pick off enemy ships without them being exposed to ranged fire. Skirmisher line units are the best for coastal defense against ships because you can rotate them out of danger, whereas archer units remain on the coast to be attacked.
With such a big lead, you should have invested more into your military, 28 troops out of 51 is way too low. With 45ish units you would have stood a very good chance at repelling any invasion, especially if you settled more defensively.
Also, why did you build the Palace so late in the game?
Looking at your main cities, my advice would be to not settle so many coastal cities and I'd settle the coastal cities in more defensible positions. For example I'd settle Tangier inland oron the unworked plains tile east of the three-tile lake, then I'd create a network of roads on the tiles to the south so that I could use an army of rotating skirmishers to pick off enemy ships without them being exposed to ranged fire. Skirmisher line units are the best for coastal defense against ships because you can rotate them out of danger, whereas archer units remain on the coast to be attacked.
With such a big lead, you should have invested more into your military, 28 troops out of 51 is way too low. With 45ish units you would have stood a very good chance at repelling any invasion, especially if you settled more defensively.
Also, why did you build the Palace so late in the game?
Tekamthi
Emperor
- Joined
- Aug 12, 2016
- Messages
- 1,662
personally I really enjoy this dynamic... its a rare game where I have the military and land holdings able to support significant island conquests, all over the map. Either I get one or two islands nearby my mainland, or a group of islands further abroad, but rarely just far-flung single island colonies. In this sense VP has achieved a degree of realism not present in vanilla imo.
I've been playing with a personal mod mod that gives double naval movement on owned trade routes -- its a little lua heavy mind you, but this feature fits very well to help defend island colonies while still requiring significant resource commitment, and adds subtle value to internal or non-optimal-yield TRs. As I've implemented it, the ability (a promo) disappears for a turn upon being engaged in combat, so its not so OP once combat has begun. Will one day get around to cleaning this up enough to be published here, but would recommend this change for main VP branch if at all possible.
Last edited:
My recent experience is near-identical, except the AI in my games tends to split very evenly among all three ideologies. I get that your game was different, though. I've particularly noticed the improvement in WC and warmonger-civ performance. In my last game, Sweden kept growing and growing. I ignored them mostly because Sweden always fades out in my games, but not this time. The difference seemed to be that they had a culture gold mine from the start, amassing a huge lead in Wonders. Late in the game I bribed my ally Persia into war with them, having estimated a standoff. Ten turns later, Persia was gone. I was shocked... and thankful I had two vassals to guarantee my DV.
As to the island, I think you are referring to the one in the lower left of the island pic (a name would be helpful, took several looks to find what you meant). That one is a puppet I took from Denmark, I used it as a naval staging ground because it has defensive bottlenecks to the west you can’t see in the pic.
in terms of the number of cities, I find Morocco is a very flexible civ. They play well tall as well as wide. I went for the more wide play this game.
In terms of Tangier I agree with you. Ultimately it wasn’t really the military Invasion that caused me to quit, I knew I was going to be completely out tech and I didn’t have a way to get back in the game.
supply wise, i had a lot of planes, so my supply is better than it looks on paper. Beyond that...it was money. I was running a deficit with that supply (I was sanctioned and everyone was out war with me anyway). So I could afford more troops for a long while.
what palace are you referring to?
LifeOfBrian
King
- Joined
- Aug 21, 2019
- Messages
- 757
Thanks for the reply.
Ah, I just figured you were building the Palace (Order national wonder) so late because you switched ideologies very late, nevermind.
As for being out-teched, did you try rushing Hubble and using your faith/science process/science specialists to go very heavy on great scientists in the late-game? I find it odd that you'd be out-teched with such strong cities by two non-science AIs.
I meant Tetouan, why did you settle it?
Ah, I just figured you were building the Palace (Order national wonder) so late because you switched ideologies very late, nevermind.
As for being out-teched, did you try rushing Hubble and using your faith/science process/science specialists to go very heavy on great scientists in the late-game? I find it odd that you'd be out-teched with such strong cities by two non-science AIs.
I meant Tetouan, why did you settle it?
Revolutionist_8
King
RE: "missing work of art"
I think I found the culprit. Castles have a Great Work of Art slot (since when I can't recall, I completely missed it somehow lol), but the building is not showing up in the Culture Overview panel. So that's why you can't see it there, but as soon as it moves from it (you press the optimize for example) you can see it. I'll report it on github.
I think I found the culprit. Castles have a Great Work of Art slot (since when I can't recall, I completely missed it somehow lol), but the building is not showing up in the Culture Overview panel. So that's why you can't see it there, but as soon as it moves from it (you press the optimize for example) you can see it. I'll report it on github.
It was an excellent spot with the deer and fish. Gave me iron, and I know the map script well enough that I suspected it would have oil or coal...turned out I was right. It also gave me a trade hub to a lot of southern carthage cities and CS.
Malaca was not settled until much later so it gave me a nice control over the area. Now obviously to the question of "was it worth it?" In hindsight I have to say no, too difficult to hold and too far away.
I am trying an experiment in my new game. I want to see how an island city performs off water (especially with isolation penalties). This may be the better way to settle islands, though I lose a lot of resources by not having harbor/lighthouse/seaport I gain a whole lot of safety.
Spoiler :
I'd say it's still bad defensively, since AIs know to bring land units along with their ships nowadays, so you still have to have a navy there to defend regardless.
General_Drax
Warlord
I'm waiting as well the Recursive reprogramming of AI diplomacy and the bug fix on Castles not showing up in culture panel. Won a game on King as Arabia (Tradition/Statecraft/Rationalism/Order with SV quite easy but kudos to a Tradition/Statecraft/Industry/Freedom Germany with 5 cities (FIVE !) that tried until the last 10 turns to win/harass me.
I'm finding peaceful game balanced over King difficulty (I mean getting a win) and warmonger game on Emperor if I have a very good start. Emperor is a tough nut to crack.
- Status
