Open Role Play Challenge: Sneaky Mao

[madscientist]

@MIT

Spoiler :

Very nicely played and sucinctly reported! Cities, bait, die!

Feel free to bait the world into war and an inadvertant military win, but I would say you need to at least avoid declaring war, and I would be interested to see if you could do it!. Now your likely too big to get everyone to go after you, so.........

Space my friend!

Also nice espionage, definitely following teh flavor of the game!

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Played until 905AD

Spoiler :

It was hard at first to get the hang of an espionage game. Had never tried such a thing before. So, I chose the option of settling the spies. Settled that spy of the last save and was thinking of researching and using espionage to backfill. Then I sent my first stealing mission :

As you can see I had raised the espionage slider to 20% already. I thought "hey! let's do a complete espionage game!" You see, I was feeling it was like a normal game with more accent to spies, so after code of laws I shut down research and started working with the slider.

I whipped a corthouse in every city and immediately started running a specialist in all of them. It was not so good at first because it slowed growth a lot. I mean, assigning a specialist after a 4 pop whip is not the best way to get big cities...

Eventually they grew back and I could steal a lot of stuff. Forgot to take screenies of the moment of the actual stealing.

I'm running Hereditary Rule, Vassalage (Mehmed's favorite), Caste (wang Kon's) and Pacifism. After building castles in most my cities I could get a decent output.

My cities:

There was a time I thought of giving up because I was really, really backwards but the investment paid off:
Tech parity at least!!!

As I chose option A, I'd still have the option of going back to research but I think I won't do it to keep the flavor. The only drawback is that I already have all the SYs I can have: ONE!!! Next techs on the list: WK is researching astro and the goat man has banking. Will avoid economy as long as I can.

 

[tycoonist]

i started playing this, but marathon put me off quite a lot. i don't know how anyone can stand the boredom.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Played until 1502AD

Spoiler :

First of all, I'd like to let you all know that my second post as well as half of this one were played last night right after I came home from a bar. Half of the clumsiness of the play is because of that. (Let's forget for a moment that the other half is my actual skill )

So, for a long time nothing worth mentioning happened. Kept stealing techs and started to build a military. The screenshots:

I settled a spy for the first (and hope that for the last) time. Mansa was building Broadway and I used him to steal Electricity and sabotage the wonder. Two turns later he had a Great Engineer born and rushed it anyway.

Wang Kon was being a pain, destroyed a town, a village, a lumbermill, etc. and poisoned two or three cities so I decided to tick him a bit.

It worked!

Then our BFF Mehmed asked us to do this:

Mr. Musa was becoming a culture threat so I accepted.

Another one joins the party!

From Gilgamesh:

One of the three allowed wonders:

Civics:

Cities:

You don't know how embarrassed I felt when I saw what I had done settling Macau and Tianjin where I did! I mean TMIT's spot for his Macau was so obvious! That's one of the things that make him an Immortal player and me an Emperor wannabe...

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Two quick questions:

1-It's legal to capture a city with a wonder, right?

2-When someone goes WHEOOHRN, does increasing your power make them postpone their DOW? Is it better to wait for the declaration to draft?

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

i started playing this, but marathon put me off quite a lot. i don't know how anyone can stand the boredom.

You can always open the WB file and change the speed to the one you like better.

Game speed is taste. I remember Obsolete complaining in his Augustus' Deity Industrious that normal speed was too slow...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Two quick questions:

1-It's legal to capture a city with a wonder, right?

2-When someone goes WHEOOHRN, does increasing your power make them postpone their DOW? Is it better to wait for the declaration to draft?

1. Yes.

2. No. Once in war mode the only thing that gets the AI out is inability to mass sufficient units, regardless of target power change. If it will leave war mode, even deleting all your units wouldn't change that.

I played my game!

Emp/Normal No Gayvents Option A

Very late 1951 space victory.

Spoiler :

In the last segment I was discussing all this advanced espionage and war bait crap at the end. Then I realized I was already #1 in land and pop, and decided to just win. I steal my last tech (don't worry, EP will make a difference one more time)

From there, US + Emancipation powers the towns and my empire size takes it further. I build the science multipliers then switch back to wealth. I actually ignore internet since MM appears to be running away in tech and will get there first, but I'd be the only other contender so it doesn't help him...instead I tech for labs first...focusing my minimal EP on MM in case I need to wreck a part or two or ruin a culture attempt.

Speaking of culture attempts, he goes that route, and I catch up. I have 2 turns left on the net when he gets computers, and he has no way to rush it.

SP + basic hammer improvements etc. I would specialize 3 cities to hammers, but this one was ironworks. It built the internet in an unimpressive 9 turns, but good enough.

And a screenshot of the late-game cap

So like I said, MM going culture but slowly:

That #3 city is lagging a bit...wonder why...

1. Poison water
2. Destroy all health buildings (granary, harbor, aqueduct, anything else)
3. Steal underwear + profit
4. EP Rape target city to a useless, starving pop 1 with repeated water poisons and occasional sabotage. If this can be done with minimal investment (I didn't even have jails!), it's indeed a worthy anti-culture whore technique vs 1 AI:

With the net and a better beaker rate, eventually I get into the air:

Well, it's late, but no other civ was even close. MM stupidly went culture, and willem got locked in a duel with mehmed the entire game, vassaling him in the 1900's...way too late. Hatty got a city to legendary but MM took all her means to be relevant. Wang Kon kept his last city the whole game. Gilgamesh did very little and hated everyone else more than me (he was pleased w/ me) so I just left him alone. Game over.

And the most pitiful winning score on this machine:

As far as space parts...built everything but the 2nd engine. 3 cities were enough easily, it was my tech that held me back ultimately.

Rules? I stayed within all of them. The only exception was that in my automated hurry the governor ran some non-spy specs (though of course it prefers spy specs first anyway). Those were just burned on golden ages (only got 2 non-spies from GPP, the engineer was from getting to fusion 1st)...so all in all I kept pretty much within the rules even though this only moderately showcased espionage. I guess spyraping a culture city to 1 pop is somewhat novel however .

 

[tycoonist]

You can always open the WB file and change the speed to the one you like better.

Game speed is taste. I remember Obsolete complaining in his Augustus' Deity Industrious that normal speed was too slow...

im fine with epic, its just that marathon requires pressing enter about a thousand times to build a cottage. and by the time i realised it was marathon, i'd already opened the file, and couldn't be bothered to change it.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Until 1692AD.

Spoiler :

Was hoping to play a longer segment, but this will have do for now. I was afraid I'd forget how things went.

So, our ticking Wang Kon policy to get him to declare on us took a big setback. At some time he offered to become Willy's vassal and bye bye WHEOOHRN.

The first thing I did, as I had completed the Kremlin was to rushbuy all the gold multipliers in all cities. So they all got Markets, Grocers and Banks. The income at 100% went from $250 to $600ish.

After that, I rushbought all the Espionage buildings in all of them. This way I got more EPs at 0% then I was getting at 70%.

We kept stealing stuff.

This made me do a quick detour and buy Levees wherever they could be bought.

In the meantime, WK renounced Willy's protection and freed Toku as a colony. Unfortunately, the arrogant demand is capped at -10, so there was nothing I could do to get him to declare on me. Then the religious wedding event showed up and we chose the -3 diplo hit option. As a consequence:

As the AIs were getting close to Assembly Line, I had to get Economics, so I traded Steel for it with Mehmed. That was actually quite good because Mehmed and Willem hate each other guts, so it gave them some sort of power balance. The sad part is that our espionage fell a bit after that.

Two more stealings. Robbed them both.

I invaded Korea and wiped WK off the continent. I think we've all seen SODs over and over, so I'm not going to post my SOD's screeny here. The one thing worth mentioning is that Seoul was the shrined Buddhist holy city, so I bought Wall Street there.
We signed a peace treaty. He was willing to capitulate, despite having a vassal. Had never seen that happening.

Then the last tech of the round, courtesy of Netherlands:

I'm still at war with Mansa Musa and I should hurry to get them because he's around 20 turns of Industrialism. I don't have artillery yet because I switched off research a long time ago.

One or two Great Spies were born and settled in Beijing.

 

[cripp7]

I noticed everyone stacking spies when stealing techs or sabotaging, does using multiple spies like that at one time improve your odds?

 

[madscientist]

I noticed everyone stacking spies when stealing techs or sabotaging, does using multiple spies like that at one time improve your odds?

No, but if the mission fails you already have another spy there to try again.

 

[cripp7]

No, but if the mission fails you already have another spy there to try again.

What I meant was I see in the pics that all the spies are all selected together, if the mission fails does it just remove 1 spy from the group?

 

[madscientist]

What I meant was I see in the pics that all the spies are all selected together, if the mission fails does it just remove 1 spy from the group?

Hmmm, that I do not know.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Yap, just the one that got caught goes away.

 

[Grey Fox]

I actually thought of something I might want to try for this: tight city placement.

Yeah, when I run an espionage economy it's usually when I have lots and lots of cities. Since most espionage buildings come with raw EP, more cities always = more EP. It's a good way to recover from an extreme REX/Conquest spree.

 

[Ignorant Teacher]

Almost one month later, got back to the game.

Spoiler :

Boy, it's weird to come back to a game after such a long time. Can you believe I had forgotten about it? Yesterday I remembered. I'll search my profile to see if there aren't other games I abandoned.

So, I started by making peace with everybody. Wang Kon and Tokugawa were willing to cap, but useless vassals only bring you hidden modifiers, so no. Anyhow, back to the trades with Mansa!

I sent a stack of spies to Mali to steal Radio and Industrialism. Peace is really a better environment to espionage.


At the same time, Mehmed is at war with both Willem van Oranje and Gilgamesh. As I don't want them growing too big and strong, I started to give him all the military techs so that they'll stall. Gave him Assembly Line, Physics, Railroad and Combustion. They all signed peace and I signed a defensive pact with Mehmed. That def pact would later come knocking at my door...

The only good thing my towns were doing to me was giving me rushbuy funds. I thought that was not really necessary and started to slowly redesign the landscape to maximize my production. As I'm Mao, I had no regards for whatever improvements were there at the first place. Towns and farms were treated with the same respect. China shall become a giant sweatshop!

When my spies arrive to Mali, I remember why I was at war with Mansa Musa at the first place: he's trying to get a culture victory! The few spies I sent couldn't do anything about it then but I will stop his attempt the way TMIT did. Right now I steal the techs I wanted and rush the Pentagon. Then I set the slider to 100% gold. Rushbuy party time!!!

A great artist was born. Damn you governor, automatically assigning the wrong specialists! I save it for a Golden Age. I steal Fascism from WvO and start build some observatories in preparation for the labs. I give Industrialism to Mehmed. Another Great Spy was born and I settled him in Beijing.

Gilgamesh then declares war at Mehmed and the defensive pact is activated. I immediately buy a Marine per city. He sends a stack to my land on which I'm happy to throw away my old CKNs. A great general is born and I attach him to a cavalry to unlock West Point and have a medic. I revolted his closest city and razed it. From that moment on I became Gilgamesh's worst enemy. I then sign a peace treaty.

Meanwhile my spies were having a busy time in Gao. Before:

After:

Gilgamesh then starts an espionage campaign against me. I keep making counter-espionage missions but, every now and then, he destroys some improvements or buildings. Mehmed researches Artillery and I trade it for Biology. By the way, Mehmed's getting beat up. I bribe them to make peace. I start a Golden Age and switch to Free Religion to make Willem happy.

I steal Refrigeration and some more techs. Gilgamesh declares war on me.

It's a total massacre. As I'm not doing any research, I have plenty of money to support a massive army. At that moment I have 70 Tanks to welcome him. In the first turn a Great General is born and I make a military academy in Seoul to build ships faster. In the second turn he sends another stack and I get another general that builds a military academy in my West Point/Ironworks city. In the beginning of the war, I had 2.1 times his power. Two turns later I have 3.3.

I then realize I have no Aluminum. Fortunately Lagash is right next to me and is settled on a source of it. Unfortunately I have no siege. But Gilgamesh's a turn away from Flight and I think I'll try to do as Duckweed in his deity challenge: massive air power for a lightning war. I start building airports in every city to build better bombers. But then I think again: who needs to have sophisticated tactics when you have your spies and this:

The next turn he's willing to capitulate, but Mehmed hates his guts and he's sort of my attack dog. It would be way better if he weren't so weak right now... Anyhow, I then realize I already had an unimproved source of Aluminum in Seoul. I make peace with Gilgamesh and give him his city back, I'm already big enough. I'm number one in production and can sabotage Willy's efforts to build a spaceship at my will.

A great artist was born in Mali. Fortunately he didn't use it in Gao. Mehmed declares war on Gilgamesh, but nothing happened in the war so far.

This is my power:

Espionage:

I now have to build more spies to send to Mali and keep stealing stuff from Willem van Oranje. He's currently researching Computers. I don't know if I should build the Internet just to deny it to him. I'm the tech leader and, all the time I steal a tech, it's at the same turns it's discovered so it wouldn't change much to me, but he would get really strong with that. He's number one in GNP and has more population than me. As the Internet is not a wonder and doesn't generate great people it's perfectly legal to build it, isn't it?. Besides, there's more to espionage than just stealing techs.