Nobles' Club 226: Victoria of England

[earthy]

@krikav

Spoiler :

I think you're probably right about the giggles army. I was just in autopilot mode with the whipping for a while, and since I figured they wouldn't get to the eastern front in time to do anything meaningful I could use them to kill giggles. It may have also been a little personal need for revenge . Really what I needed was rifling/steel a little earlier though. I ran into a lot of trouble with Washington because I didn't have enough rifles to defend the cuir, or enough cannons to break through fortified rifles

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

I'm continually amazed at my own ability to completely lose focus on empire managment when the troops start to fly.
Basically every time I make peace everything is in a complete mess.
After a DoW I get much more impatient, and play faster and just skim over all micro in cities/workers to just get back to the front and move units.

Allways such a delight after one has won a vassal or when peace arrives too, "Oh. I have completely ruined this city. It has 3 food surplus and I had even made a note to remind me not to whip it.", "Oh, I whipped away all towns here?" "Why is this city working coast instead of corn?!" etc etc.

 

[sampsa]

1AD

Spoiler :

My archers had followed the situation around Libyan and got their chance. Unfortunately the city was never size 2, so it was auto-razed. 2-pop whipped 2 settlers and a 3rd one very soon afterwards when I got IW.

Went towards music via drama, which was probably worse than normal lit-route, since there was no real rush with bulbing philo I think (got it 500BC) and the music race was way tighter than I had imagined. Had to resort to some trickery, when I realized Wang has literature. Ran 10% for one turn to see his research - phew, he is going construction. His next choice was music though, in 3T which would be a tie (I assume I win then), but I lack money to run full research. Had to give drama away for this, but it's better to win music than lose it. Took cheap masonry, as I thought buddhist block will be friendly towards me soon anyway.

Also beat Genghis to this site (you can see his settler just arrived this turn). Wanted 1st ring marble just to be sure, though I'm sure with music (build culture) I could win the cultural battle. Barb galley is annoying, need to chop a trireme. Trades were excellent btw, got pretty much everything I wanted when I wanted.

So, won music, started GA already 300BC since capital and the cities N and NE were at /-cap. Chose to remain in pacifism, maybe dumb, not sure. It's quite expensive as I also have 20 units to keep my cities happy. Capital is 2, so after aqueduct only -1 and I think I won't grow past 18 for now. T110 I realized MoM isn't gone so kinda trying to get it, but should have no chance. One Gmerchant on the way to ToA-city, two more in progress, but currently in growth mode. I think I can get Taj in a reasonable time in Coventry, I mean forge and 5 forests, some natural hammers. If not, maybe I spend a turn switching to OR. Damn, would have been better to get my hands on mono at the end of GA to switch into it. Probably not running many specialists anyway between golden ages. Oh I have 3 GS waiting, so lib MT it is. 500AD attack maybe? Some silly mistakes, map had potential for so much more.

Genghis got friendly for the first time T94, but me settling the iron spot annoyed him. The prick also forgot I gave him resources for +50T? Don't remember seeing that before. Amazingly Gilgamesh is not friendly (religion+civic) but should be in a couple of turns.

edit: oh wow, Giggles just finished Shwedagon and went free religion.

Save added (BUFFY).

 

[krikav]

Spoiler Emancipation calculation and analysis. :

After searching the forums for "Enmancipation" and only finding threads where I had written myself (some from ages past) I finally realize I have been misspelling it all this time.
It's Emancipation, not ENmancipation. "Good to know!"
I just assume I work all cottages non-stop fo the next 60 turns.

I have 3 cottages in my empire, that reaches hamlet status in 2, 2 and 5 turns. For simplicity I just count these as fresh hamlets.
So, the hamlets in my empire have the following turns to reach village:
20, 20, 20, 18, 16, 16, 15, 15, 15, 13, 11, 8, 6, 6, 4, 3, 3, 2, 2,1
20 in total, with an average I round down to 10, turns to village.

Assuming printing press, a village yields 2 more commerce than a hamlet.
If a hamlet takes 10 turns to reach village w/o emancipation it takes 5 turns with. And this means we gain these 2 commerce 5 turns sooner with emancipation.
With my 20 hamlets that has an average of 10 turns left to get to village, emancipation will earn me 20*5*2= 200commerce over the next 20 turns (I think the yield will be about bell-curved distributed)

(The statistics says I have 23 villages but I have really scoured the map several times and it's only 21.
They have the following turns to town:
40, 39, 35, 35, 34, 33, 31, 27, 24, 23, 23, 16, 16, 13, 10, 10, 9, 7, 6, 4, 1.
Average 20.76 which I round down to 20 turns to town.


Now... village to town is much more tricky, as universial suffrage and possibly free speach complicate things. But assuming no free speach and counting the universial suffrage hammer as a commerce, a town yields 2c more than a village.

Emancipation reduces the time it takes for my average village to get to town from 20 to 10 turns, gaining me 10 turns of extra town-yield per village.
So... 21 villages, 2 extra yield, and 10 turns. 21*10*2 = 420 commerce (really i'ts 210 commerce and 210 hammers)
This over the next 40 turns.
If I choose to go free speach too, this would be 610 commerce and 210 hammers.

But my 20 hamlets that have turned villages will also become towns...
They get to towns in 40 turns w/o emancipation and 20 turns with, so I gain 20 turns of extra town-yield from them.
20*2*20= 800 (400 hammers, 400 commerce).
(Assuming free speach as well, 1200 commerce, 400 hammers.

SO, in total, from T155 to T215, emancipation/US would yield 200+420+800= 1620 commerce.
Assuming free speach on top of that, yield would be 1220 extra to a total of 2840commerce.
(Or, 47 commerce per turn).
So... nothing extraordinary, but not nothing either.


What could complicate things abit, is that if I go with emancipation, all hamlets now will be villages in 10 turns, which then will be towns in another 20 turns.
So after just 30 turns of emancipation, I have a fully towned empire.

Spoiler tl;dr :

Wow, emancipation seems to add almost 50 beaker per turn in a cottagespammed 10 city empire. Nothing extraordinary but not something to completely ignore either.

 

[krikav]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

372 bpt and capital at pop17, you pretty much nailed your prediction.
I'm amazed that you can know these things in advance.
Personally, I couldn't tell if 200 or 500bpt is normal or not at T115, I tend to think more in terms of turns per tech, so that I know that economics in 3 turns is pretty darn fast, while 10 turns is slow.

I did my second civic swap (first was only to slavery) into HR +pacifism, and I think that was a mistake too (had built a horde of warriors for the happines.
It was costing me alot, and I didn't really run many specialists anyway. Well, since I was in pacifism I more or less had to compromise and did run a few in some select cities... But the map really has such potential for growth that specialists are sort of a pain.

pop17 capital shows clearly the extremly steep price I paid for my whippings of monesteries & xbows to get overflow into globe theatre. My capital was size9 when yours where 17.
Maybe if I stuck to the plan to 1pop whip a horde of HAs to upgrade to cuirs that globe could have been somewhat justified, but as I continued the game that capital whipping was probably one of the greatest mistakes so far.

Cuir attack T135 you say? Are you planning to whip HAs?

 

[earthy]

@krikav
I am very much the same! Whenever I watch Lain's videos and he's calmly micro'ing while there's a stack ready to take him out or something it amazes me

@sampsa

wow that 1AD screenshot makes me want to replay this start. It's like when you finally learn to ride your bike, but then you see someone doing wheelies

 

[sampsa]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Cuir attack T135 you say? Are you planning to whip HAs?

I will certainly upgrade HAs yes. Need to think about details really... Not sure if my Taj-city is actually strong enough for Taj, or if my position benefits that much from Taj. I know my position will benefit from capping my neighbors. T135 cuirs is a hunch, not based on anything. .

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

I went back to your T143 post and looked, it seems that you are whipping cuirs straight.
I think that this map lends itself much more to whipping horse archers (or elephants) and then upgrade them (aprox a 3.5 gold -> hammer conversion ratio).
Such an approach makes it possible to spread out production over a longer period, as you can slow-build HAs (or whip) a long time prior to libbing MT and finishing gunpowder.

It can also yield a much stronger burst in your attack, as you if you have some GMerchants can get an insane amount of cash (Thanks to GPerson overpoweredness, 300GPP = 1100g or something.
In a turn, you can upgrade a whole horde of HAs and just ride in.

Another positive side-effect is that after you spent the initial stash of gold (perhaps you had enough to upgrade 20 out of 35 HAs) the entire commerce base of your entire empire can after that be devoted into summoning forth hammers to the battlefield by running 0% slider and upgrading the rest of the HAs that stand by.
It's a technique to really devote 100% of your resources GPersons, commerce, population.. into a single goal, as much punch as possible on the battlefield as quick as possible.
When you get it to work, and the ratios line up somewhat (not too much cash and to few HAs, not too many HAs and no commerce, it's really really satisfying.
I

 

[krikav]

@scheines

Spoiler :

Nice play!
I expect everyone to act contradictory to what I say, you are the expert on your game and on your specfic situation, what you are experienced with and such.

Friendly or pleased doesn't matter that much before you run into a brick wall when AI after AI start to say "We find you are becomming to advanced", after that pleased AIs won't trade with you at all, but friendly AIs will.

And it doesn't matter if you are friendly with the AIs as long as you have a AI they dislike.
If they are friendly to you, and pleased toward your vassal, that averages out to pleased and you might not get any trades at all.

Once you have one vassal though, taking onboard more is often no differance at all!

 

[earthy]

@krikav

Spoiler :

I wanted to do that but I didn't think I'd be able to get the merchant out/make the timing work. I already used 5 great people (philo, taj, 2x edu, lib), so the 6th guy was going to be hard to get. I would have had to take anarchy to stay in caste/pacifism after the golden age finished, and a turn or two of lost whipping almost equals a GM worth of upgrades I think. The other problem is if I stayed in caste then I can't whip the HA's, so I can only chop a few and won't get many regardless. I only had mines improved in my capital since I was waiting on machinery for windmills, so slowbuilding them wouldn't really have done much either =/

Maybe with better planning earlier I could have pulled it off, but it felt way too awkward with the spot I was in..

 

[Harv]

@sampsa - I like how your tooltip details the odds for you. What mod is it and am I supposed to have it?

It would take me a good few minutes to calculate all that and the tooltip would tell me if I got it right!

 

[earthy]

I tried to copy Sampsa's "grow like crazy" strategy to 1ad:

Spoiler :

I went for double workboat again, and this time I whipped 2 settlers before my first worker. Grew on a workboat for the clams in between the settlers, finished it with OF. Didn't go for mids. Music race wasn't really an option either cause Joao went for it real early. @1AD I'm 1 city short(2 barb cities popped and I could only snipe 1), 7 population ahead, 2 techs behind(music+drama), about same beaker rate, but he's got 4 scientists and a merchant out and I've only spawned 1 scientist . Oh well, it still feels like an improvement to my first try on this map

T34:

t52(about to whip two workers here)

T115: (accidentally discovered confu and spread it to giggles!)

Edit: @Harv I think that's buffy. I just installed it today and it's quite nice!

 

[sampsa]

@earthy

Spoiler :

I think I have 76pop, you 74pop. I guess the biggest difference is winning music, that extra golden age is just so powerful.

edit: but yeah, I think growing works very well on this map, because there are so many strong tiles available.

 

[earthy]

@sampsa

Spoiler :

oops you're right! I think I forgot to count one of the 9's. I don't think I'll finish this second go, but I'm curious about what you would recommend regarding GP production if I did. Would it be worth using a scientist for a golden age to get more scientists and maybe a merchant with caste/pacifism? I never really golden age before lib without winning music or taj and I wonder if that's a mistake.

 

[sampsa]

@earthy

Spoiler :

I never really golden age before lib without winning music or taj and I wonder if that's a mistake.

Absolutely. In peaceful games (well, peaceful in the BCs), land with lots of food I'd nearly always aim for a pre-liberalism golden age, because you win so much . This is also one reason I don't generally like an academy, I rather use that to run a GA. Out of habit, I ran scientists in two cities initially until I realized that if I win music, all I need is philo GS before the golden age. Certainly here an academy was an OK play, but I think it does delay the attack by 1-2T and I think here I care only about attack date, everything should be smooth after that.

 

[krikav]

@earthy

Spoiler :

Depends alot on the situation I say.
Times when I do it is when I'm really desperate for a quick breakout. I'm starved for land and I don't have much going for me at all. Just have to get some leverage out of the early burst a GA and Gpersons can give me.
Doing this with a too small empire with too little food though, almost guarantees that one has to wait a looooong time for another GA, and possibly endure several turns of revolt before that.
You get a first GPerson, run a GA with that an get 3 more that you need (two bulbs and a merchant or something like that).
Then you are likely stuck with depleted GPPools all around the board, and you need to get up to 500GPPoints for just one more GPerson and another 600 to be able to run a GA.

When you have a large empire and alot of food, then it's par for the course.
All cities can grow nice and big and build their infrastructure or units while just a single one is put on GPGeneration duty.
Then you do a GA and swap to pacifism (or not, it's good anyway) and all cities change focus to GPGeneration, and they do it under much better circumstances.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T234 :

I ended up rushbuying cuirs because Khan was so horribly behind. I was planning on delaying this more because I wanted to roll over medieval unitw with tanks, but the deucebag was starting to blow up my towns with espionage. >_<
So why not go cuirs on him abit late?

Away with him, I got AP resident toward the end of the war and had a vote for everyone to DoW him, was funny that Wang got to take back his old cities.

Wang broke free from Washington, so I immediatly bribed Gilga on Wang. This in turn made wang seek protection from Washington again, but I could stop the war against Gilga with AP.

That apparantly made Gilgamesh put some confidence in me.

I ended up building all the radio wonders, but somewhere between microing and recovering after Khan and preparing for the others, my motivation started to drop alot.
Got quick access to alot of Wangs cities from Hammys land.

Exterminated Washingtons stack, about a half-dozen collateral promoted artilery suicided and then tanks had a feast.

Washington wants to give me 600g for peace now, but I think a ceasefire is enough.
Have 80 tanks but I think about half of them is in Wangs former territory and need to stock up on bombers too.

Would be kind of fun to nuke someone too, 3 turns left to complete manhattan!

Capital doesn't have any problems with war weariness.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T251 Domination :

BOOOM!

Nuking a city empty makes it easy to take from sea.
Another trick is to enter the captured city with a transport loaded with paratroopers.
Paratroopers can jump next to a empty city and enter it, a nifty way of capturing cities inland T0 of a war.

Apparantly great people and corporate executives can block this tactic though. >_<

Can't get him up from furious even if I gift back all cities.
They AIs really really really don't like that you nuke them.

George was so kind as to place his SoD by the beach.
Launched a whole bunch of tacticals from Chicago too, but all paratroopers got shot down by jet fighters.
The army of tanks took seattle from Joaos land too.

Didn't get to use my stash of ICBM missiles.

Woo hoo!

 

[elementoffear]

This is a horribly addictive game...

played 4 times.
Did not manage to win it, whatever I did I always ended being attacked, on the games I was ready I was able to repel back and even destroy/take vassals, but it always took a toll so even if I was huge someone wa further in tech from me, and AI's kept peace vassaling to each other, it was horrible, and I love it!

Spoiler :

In my best attempt I got up to 36 cities after killing Sumeria and Babylon, and vassaling Mongolia, but Washington was way to advanced and had Portugal as a vassal, and managed to launch the ship before I could do anything about it.

Which brings me to a couple of questions:

1 - Can you kill/fire/divorce your vassal?

2 - Can you defy a resolution after it has already succeeded (and you didn't defy it when it was presented)?

Great game @AcaMetis , its so good I am still playing it in my head

 

[krikav]

@elementoffear

Spoiler :

Regarding your game:

I'm glad that you mention the hardships you mention, because I thought that could cause problems, and I'm quite sure that @AcaMetis had this as his special prepared challenge in the game.
@earthy mentioned shortly that he ran into similar problems later in his game, so you are in good company.

Washington can clearly become a problem especially if he gets Joao as a vassal, which seems awfully likely given the land setup.
Sometimes you can go after some weakling fast and efficient enough that it makes sense (probably @sampsa will showcase that ), and sometimes you are just forced to as the strong ones are way out of your legue (happens very frequently in iso games).

I kind of tried to play in such a way that I could ignore most of the weaklings here and go straight for washington, but the Khan situation (and later vassal mess) made that impossible.




1.
You can demand stuff from your vassal, and there is a chance that they will break free (and declare war).
"This is your tribute, refusal means war." other than that... No, in some situations you can let the vassal be killed.
(I did it here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/brennus-thirdly.654203/page-4#post-15652546
Took Toku as a vassal to get techs from him, but he was just up on the border against WvO so when I declared on WvO he made short work of Toku. ).

2.
You can't change the outcome from a resolution the second time around I think, but if enough votes vote different than the first time around, maybe the result changes, I don't know.
But you can't have the vote again and defy it, Lain tried that in his Pacal game, trying to reinstate Nukes, but it didn't work.^