Observations from a game I won yesterday

[futurehermit]

I won a game yesterday (Patched warlords, emperor, continents, standard, normal) via spacerace with Elizabeth.

There were a couple of things I wanted to mention from that game to see what people think.

-I was on a continent with Mansa and Brennus. I had a nice capital with 3 floodplains and a pig and a decent city to the north with 1 floodplains, a rice, and a gold pit. The rest of the area around me was crap (I was on the south of the continent with lots of desert and no seafood on the coast ). I got boxed in by Mansa to the west and Brennus to the north. I couldn't build any more decent cities. I did have copper in my capital so I really should've axe-rushed Brennus, but I didn't want to lose out on the GL and with only 2 cities it was hard to mass units (Mansa ALWAYS seems to build GL really early so I didn't want to lose it).

-The thing was, my research was already through the roof. I had cottage all of the floodplains, was working the goldpit, and was running 2 scientists in each city with GL in my capital. I had 0 power pretty much, but I got liberalism ca 350 AD, my fastest ever! This was helped by trading with Mansa and lightbulbing with GSs. That's one thing I wanted to put out there for discussion: Does building fewer (maybe ideal being 3-4) cities allow for faster liberalism times since you can run the science slider at 100% the whole time since you're not paying maintenance? Of course getting domination would be out of the question pretty much because you spent eons in peace. But my tech was great.

-The nice thing was that Mansa hated Brennus (they had founded different religions and had close borders). So Brennus became super backwards in tech because Mansa and I were trading buddies and neither were trading with Brennus. So I bribed Mansa to declare on Brennus while researching to rifling and GS lightbubling chemistry. Meanwhile I was building catapults. Then when rifling and chemistry came on line I drafted rifles while building grenadiers. Since Brennus was so backwards in tech I soon after wiped out his 10 city empire (like a knife through hot butter).

-Then I had to figure out how I was going to win spacerace. I just couldn't keep up in tech with Mansa who had a slightly larger empire and I couldn't invade him because his power was through the roof. I knew he was my only threat, however, because Shaka had capitulated Roosevelt and Monty on the other continent and was starting on Kublai (the guy is a beast!). Shaka was backwards in tech but had huge power.

-I suck at space race. I never go for it. So I forgot that I needed rocketry first for apollo program before I could build parts. I was researching stuff Mansa didn't have so I could try and keep up in tech with him. Crap! I finally figured it out but he had built 1/2 his space ship already. What was I going to do!!! Well, I figured it was nukes or spies. I opted for spies since he would crush me in a war. I built scotland yard and got out 4 spies and set science to 0 to build up $$$. I managed to find him building his LAST space ship part in his capital.


And then I lamed him...

For the next few centuries I kept him from building that spaceship part while I built mine in peace...

He would have crushed me if he declared on me, but he never did. It felt lame

Thoughts?

 

[svv]

I'm playing a very similar game as Lizzie myself right now.

If you have GL, I don't think the science slider matters that much in getting to liberalism, especially early when the cottages are developing. Even though I built a similar cottage-heavy London, it seems that a lot of the science was coming from specialists, and great people (I was getting a lot of artists, for some reason, which I used to lighbulb, but have an academy and a couple super-scientists in London).

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

I dont think the slider matters too much in a quicker liberalism if you using gs to lightbulb your way there, outside of finishing off education. Though I suppose you could make the case that grabbing the techs before paper benefit from a higher slider.

 

[manu-fan]

As for the benefits of few versus more cities, you need to take into account the extra gold from the extra cities.

So, if you are generating 100 with 4 cities and run the slider at 100%, then (lets say) that's 100 for science.

But, if you can generate 130 with 6 cities (assuming lower gold on the extra 2 cities) and you only run at 80%, that's still 104, which is more than 100.

A common mistake for me used to be that I'd always think that the lower the slider, the worse I was generating beakers, without realizing that 50% of tons of cities is better than 100% of only a few (assuming you can keep the cities pretty profitable).

Cheers.

 

[futurehermit]

what do people think about the spy abuse?

 

[Mr. Civtastic]

what do people think about the spy abuse?

The only "problem" I have with it is that the ai couldnt come up with a counter. Something like having more units to try to catch them, or maybe even (and I know its not programmed in the game) say something like "remove all your spies in five turns or else!" and he could attack you, send his own spies at you, bribe someone else to attack you, etc.

Otherwise I think its fine considering how much money you had to spend, the fact that there is a chance of failure, and that spies cant do nearly as much as they used to.

 

[futurehermit]

I just felt it was lame. He had 1/2 his space ship built when I had nothing. Then he had 1 last piece to build and I just sabotauged him for centuries. What's money that late in the game? I was getting well over 1000/turn and was trading tech for more.

I mean clearly he should be able to tell that "someone" is repeatedly sabotauging his attempts and with none of Shaka's boats visible on the shoreline and me being the only other one on the continent...

 

[obsolete]

I don't understand. Even at prince I used to get an almost 100% failure rate on sabotaging space ship parts. How did you get away with it? Fluke or is the newer patch more different than I thought in this area?

 

[futurehermit]

Well, it was more like 70% success rate. I had four spies sitting in his capital and I just kept spending the $$$. When a spy would get caught, I would replace her. I'm not sure what else to say...

 

[Galileo44]

I mean clearly he should be able to tell that "someone" is repeatedly sabotauging his attempts and with none of Shaka's boats visible on the shoreline and me being the only other one on the continent...

You mean Mansa hadn't told you about the discovery of Shaka's secrect submarine program. Man, you are behind the times.

 

[futurehermit]

Fair enough, he could've brought them over with subs, but it's not like mansa didn't have the tech for whatever counters subs (destroyers?). (Hey, like I said, I don't usually play the late game... )

 

[Galileo44]

Oh I was just being irritating because you normally think of everything. It was nice to think, "Ha! futurehermit didn't think of that!"

 

[cabert]

I think you did the right thing with your spies.
The fact that the AI doesn't respond well to spies isn't the problem there.
If he had built the thing in a true production city, there is no way you could have stopped him. (the sabotage being much more costly if loads of hammers are invested)

OTOH if the AI played pefectly with the emperor bonus, I don't see how you could hope to win...

 

[futurehermit]

I suppose. I guess I just felt like I was exploiting the AI there. I mean spies should have a use for sure, but once the AI was realizing that "somebody" was sabotaging his production he should've done *something*, anything. Whether that was attack me or change the city of his attempt (at which case I would've move my spies, but yeah...), etc.