Overcoming Snowballing AI

[CrazyG]

Hello everyone,

I've played a lot this patch and I'm taking on another challenge. The goal is to win the game (likely by science) without capturing cities or declaring war. That doesn't sound too bad. But, I've selected two AI to be Siam and Morocco.

For those who don't know, tradition AI tend to snowball and these two both take tradition on Deity. Siam likes to get early religions and snowball from there. Morocco is actually bugged and can build his Kasbah anywhere, which makes him a disgusting late game threat. I think they are the biggest threats right now, and generally a lot harder to beat than other civs are.

My settings are continents, Deity difficulty, 8 civs, standard speed.
No ancient ruins, no events, no tech trading.

I'm feeling good that I can get there with a specific civ and a specific strategy. Anyone want to guess who is in the box before they open it?

Spoiler Civ of Choice and starting position :

Full disclosure, this is the second start I rolled. My first was actually better IMO, but I was on a continent by myself.

 

[tothePAIN]

Spoiler Guess :

I was going to guess India, otherwise Babylon would have been my 2nd pick given your post about top picks for deity.

As far as specific strategies... not sure.

Inspired by your post about top picks for Deity, I've been playing some Continents maps myself. Its definitely a different feel from Pangea. Enemy naval is a huge threat, since its hard to settle cities without naval vulnerability.

 

[tothePAIN]

Spoiler Guess :

I was going to guess India, otherwise Babylon would have been my 2nd pick given your post about top picks for deity.

As far as specific strategies... not sure.

Inspired by your post about top picks for Deity, I've been playing some Continents maps myself. Its definitely a different feel from Pangea. Enemy naval is a huge threat, since its hard to settle cities without naval vulnerability.

Mind sharing the save?

I'd be interested in trying it. My biggest problem on this patch is dealing with the snowballing tradition AI. Siam and Morocco are particular challenges. I actually consider Siam to be less of a problem, because Siam goes Industry usually, which doesn't snowball as hard as the Traditional / Rationalism civilization.

Morocco on this patch is a powerhouse because of the glitch.

 

[CrazyG]

Mind sharing the save?

Sure. But if you post anything, make sure you spoilers to hide it, I haven't played very far yet.

 

[CrazyG]

I'd be interested in trying it. My biggest problem on this patch is dealing with the snowballing tradition AI. Siam and Morocco are particular challenges. I actually consider Siam to be less of a problem, because Siam goes Industry usually, which doesn't snowball as hard as the Traditional / Rationalism civilization.

Morocco on this patch is a powerhouse because of the glitch.

Long term I agree, the bigger problem will be Morocco.

But Siam throws a wrench in the early game, he could steal religious beliefs, and makes the time to build several wonders a lot more competitive.

 

[stii]

So you moving onto that hill?

 

[CrazyG]

So you moving onto that hill?

Would you?

It's immediate tiles are weak, so I didn't really consider it. If I was I would have scouted differently.

There's just no way to hit 4 population in time from there, and I'm leaning towards tradition. If I give up the river, I'd rather do it for the wine. I've got my eye on a fast monopoly.

 

[tothePAIN]

Sure. But if you post anything, make sure you spoilers to hide it, I haven't played very far yet.

I think you posted the save from your previous run through, where you were on a continent by yourself. (It was definitely much better for a tradition Babylon play.)

I think it's a challenge here to go for a tradition play. Progress might be better given the free worker, the free science from pop growth, and the wine monopoly. The challenge there though is the restrictions of the challenge, in that Progress wants to go wide and there isn't a ton of space on continents. So tradition is probably the best policy tree, but its tough, given the poor land.

 

[stii]

Would you?

It's immediate tiles are weak, so I didn't really consider it. If I was I would have scouted differently.

There's just no way to hit 4 population in time from there, and I'm leaning towards tradition. If I give up the river, I'd rather do it for the wine. I've got my eye on a fast monopoly.

Probably yes. Trading 1 food for 2 production and a bit of gold is too tempting. Messing up tradition is a bit of a pain so there are two options. Just accept growing from 3to5. Or open with worker,shrine,monument so you can grow to size six. An early worker has a decent amount of value here as you will be working the plains titles anyway. You give up some culture but you do get things in return.

It is possible you can find a CS early and buy the marsh title and build monument 2nd but I don't think that quite works out but it is close.

 

[CrazyG]

I think you posted the save from your previous run through, where you were on a continent by yourself. (It was definitely much better for a tradition Babylon play.)

That was indeed the wrong save, I played that one a while back (I've playing a lot of Babylon).

Here is the correct one.

It is possible you can find a CS early and buy the marsh title and build monument 2nd but I don't think that quite works out but it is close.

So I delay my culture to get more gold. But I'm going to spend 50 gold of that gold on a marsh. And I delay connecting wine, which I can also sell for gold.

Maybe you can show me how this would work because I must be missing something.

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler Initial Moves :

I cross the river so that my capital has 3 wine in range. I can settle so that I get 3 immediate strong tiles.

I build a monument for 4 turns, then wait to reach 80 gold. Babylon's monuments cost 22 after investing. I end up slow building the entire shrine.

Pottery first, I need a granary to hit 4 pop before I take my first social.

It's a good initial area, faith CS are awesome. 2 wine to the north means a monopoly on just 2 cities. I thought about rushing out a settler to try and get Uluru before the CS does, but it looked risky.

Spoiler First Social :

I build a granary (invested) and farmed for 1 turn to reach 4 population in time. Babylon's investment bonus is already paying off.

That means I take tradition and reach 6 population on turn 21. This land is pretty good fro tradition.

I've met France, Netherlands, and Persia. I had to tribute a lot of the CS I met for gold for the granary, which did upset the Netherlands who was protecting one.

Spoiler Pantheon Time :

I took the artist policy second. For production I've build two workers and I'm bringing the pathfinder home. Another round of tribute is on the table.

Pantheon on turn 35. The AI have taken Ancestor Worship, Earth Mother, God of Commerce, God of the Expanse, God of the Sea, Goddess of Purity, and Goddess of the Home.
So, what to take?

 

[ohhaimark]

Plains look pretty good to me to be honest. Wheat, horses + existing faith from wines will get bonus. Add that to faith from Lhasa alliance and +2 from tradition.

 

[CrazyG]

Plains look pretty good to me to be honest. Wheat, horses + existing faith from wines will get bonus. Add that to faith from Lhasa alliance and +2 from tradition.

Whoops I put the wrong picture in, that's from much later. It's fixed now.

I get my pantheon before I research animal husbandry so you wouldn't know where the horses are. Tradition has 3 faith BTW

 

[ohhaimark]

Whoops I put the wrong picture in, that's from much later. It's fixed now.

I get my pantheon before I research animal husbandry so you wouldn't know where the horses are. Tradition has 3 faith BTW

Huh now I know its 3 faith.

Honestly, even without knowing the horses were there plains still looks decent just because of the faith generation from the wines and potential alliance / bullying of Lhasa. There could be more appropriate choices I'm not seeing though

 

[stii]

Ok so I played around with a few different options. I don't think you can build monument first and get to 4 pop here, we don't even have a 2f title to work second so it doesn't seem very close. So once we are building it second the delay to building it 3rd and rushing it with money is rather low. If you want to build a wonder it does get more complicated but then you really want the extra production, stonehenge seems like a bit of a gamble

I went worker, shrine, monument (rush buy)

(spoilers for up to T30, so revealing a bit of the map and other players)

Spoiler images :

I got 6 gpt right away which won't always happen, but is still fairly common.

I think after seeing the map the best opening is worker, pyramids,monument, shrine. You can settle a quick city near he natural wonder and get two win, then a 3rd city get get the 5th wine for a monopoly. You will end up generating a large amount of faith quickly. I don't know pantheon you'd want here but you'd have 23 faith without it anyway. This is of course much much more complicated and map dependant so I wanted to offer the basic opener you could do with any mining resource.

 

[stii]

And yeah I have no idea which position is better.

 

[CrazyG]

I think after seeing the map the best opening is worker, pyramids,monument, shrine. You can settle a quick city near he natural wonder and get two win, then a 3rd city get get the 5th wine for a monopoly. You will end up generating a large amount of faith quickly. I don't know pantheon you'd want here but you'd have 23 faith without it anyway. This is of course much much more complicated and map dependant so I wanted to offer the basic opener you could do with any mining resource.

Spoiler Spoilers to around turn 80 :

Only 6 wine spawned. Rare on a standard map. Good because it means you get the monopoly at only 4 copies, but bad because it means long term you only have 6 wine tiles.

I don't like waiting till turn 30 to have a social policy. I got mine at turn 21, at 6 culture per turn that's a 54 culture advantage. By skipping mining you connect the wine faster, which gives culture, and can recover some of the gold disparity. I also can claim my pantheon a lot earlier. I also just don't think mining is an important tech on this start, I unlocked both mathematics and writing before mining.

Worker-pyramids is clever to steal Uluru from the City state. Weird it's first border expansion took a floodplain instead of a natural wonder. I intend to play peacefully but normally I would conquer that city state.

Do you play with ancient ruins on? I'm confident the copper settle is wrong here, however, I think your approach would work a lot better with ancient ruins enabled. More starting resources would help that approach more than mine.

 

[stii]

Spoiler Spoilers to around turn 80 :

Only 6 wine spawned. Rare on a standard map. Good because it means you get the monopoly at only 4 copies, but bad because it means long term you only have 6 wine tiles.

I don't like waiting till turn 30 to have a social policy. I got mine at turn 21, at 6 culture per turn that's a 54 culture advantage. By skipping mining you connect the wine faster, which gives culture, and can recover some of the gold disparity. I also can claim my pantheon a lot earlier. I also just don't think mining is an important tech on this start, I unlocked both mathematics and writing before mining.

Worker-pyramids is clever to steal Uluru from the City state. Weird it's first border expansion took a floodplain instead of a natural wonder. I intend to play peacefully but normally I would conquer that city state.

Do you play with ancient ruins on? I'm confident the copper settle is wrong here, however, I think your approach would work a lot better with ancient ruins enabled. More starting resources would help that approach more than mine.

Spoiler :

I do normally play with ruins on

You aren't connecting the wine faster than me because I don't have to take the granary tech, although you do have an extra wine (technically there is a sea resource extra for me but that will be hard to use). You are getting to writing quicker however by skipping mining. I do agree mining isn't very exciting early, I took it for the 6gpt.

The early worker means I can grow past size 6 while you can't really, although maybe that doesn't matter much if we are building multiple settlers. It does mean I will get the settlers up quicker, I have more building and less need for a second worker so early. So it is a case of what vs the extra culture and bonuses that gives. Which I will admit is a lot.

I think Uluru counts as a hill so the border won't pop to it easily, although if that means impossible or unlikely is unclear.

 

[CrazyG]

Spoiler :

I do normally play with ruins on

You aren't connecting the wine faster than me because I don't have to take the granary tech, although you do have an extra wine (technically there is a sea resource extra for me but that will be hard to use). You are getting to writing quicker however by skipping mining. I do agree mining isn't very exciting early, I took it for the 6gpt.

The early worker means I can grow past size 6 while you can't really, although maybe that doesn't matter much if we are building multiple settlers. It does mean I will get the settlers up quicker, I have more building and less need for a second worker so early. So it is a case of what vs the extra culture and bonuses that gives. Which I will admit is a lot.

I think Uluru counts as a hill so the border won't pop to it easily, although if that means impossible or unlikely is unclear.

Spoiler :

I wouldn't grow past 6 pop for a while either way.

When both at 6 pop, the two approaches are actually tied for production. The hill pulls ahead after a well (which I'm guessing you invested), but the river gets the engineer a lot earlier.

I think the river approach does connect the wine faster. The second policy is faster for 1 science per turn, and growing earlier gives science. I also went wheel second and built a council, but a hill settle with mining could have done that too. Late wine actually sells for less early copper (I only got 4 and 3 because it was all the AI had). You also don't have to spend gold on tiles.

I'm a sucker for early culture so I still favor the river, but its impressive how close the approaches are. I think they are going to diverge soon (I was lucky to get a very good CS quest).

 

[DeAnno]

Spoiler :

Worker -> Hasty Pyramids is an interesting play I haven't seen before. Could be more broadly useful for Spain (or Carthage), to get the super fast Pantheon+3 pop, I'll have to remember it.