P666-01 Fix the Trash Game

[cabert]

so, no more news from petrucci

I say we just stick with armstrong's game, following my previous post.

How do you all feel about running to 1750AD? The early rounds were 40 turns, then we made a huge round from 875BC up to 1000 AD (some 70 turns, if i'm counting well), then 50 turns up to 1500 AD.
Pigswill proposed longer periods, and i think he is right.
I probably won't be able to play this round but i have the feeling some of you (that's including you Mice, VuDu, Petrucci if you can play this round, Calavente!) might achieve domination before 1750AD, and that would be great!

Are we set?

 

[Calavente]

yep!!

it's ok
let start it !!

 

[Calavente]

hmm..
before continuing : I have a question :
why is the forbidden palace being built in murcia (middle of continent..) not a very effectiv place no?

 

[cabert]

hmm..
before continuing : I have a question :
why is the forbidden palace being built in murcia (middle of continent..) not a very effectiv place no?

probably an early trial?
or a move before moving the capital to the other continent?

 

[armstrong]

hmm..
before continuing : I have a question :
why is the forbidden palace being built in murcia (middle of continent..) not a very effectiv place no?

Yes, it could be built in a much better place (a city or two north imo). I was more concerned about getting it built quickly. Right now I'm considering moving it (since it's a wonder, you'll get almost 300 in gold if you stop it and build FP in a different city. )

I wasn't planning on building FP or Palace on the other continent (by the time we enough cities to matter, domination should be very close.)

 

[Calavente]

argg.. I hadn't thought of that ...
I've built it .. as I didn't knew what to do about :"amstrong must have had a strong reason to put it there..." double-argh!!

 

[Cam_H]

OK ... we'll play to 1750 and look for the least successful game.

The opening post has been updated.

 

[Calavente]

I never went back to the first post..

I like what you write.
but you made a mistake : If I remember correctly, round 3 was from 875BC up to 1000AD and not 875AD.

And here in round 5 after less than 10 turns, I've learned the hard way that when a cat attacks your stack, then each collateral damage count as a lost fight in ennemy territory= more WW. 1 cat attack killed during its fight but doing 6 collateral damage transformed my 7 WW in beshbalik into a 11 WW angry people
ie 6 unworking peoples.

Another thing that happened : when I whipped in one city armstrong had whipped a lot before : I was at : 17happy, 19 unhappy (2from "we resent your abuse") so I whipped 3 pop to get a courthouse to go down at 17/17: you know what happened : I ended the turn at : 15happy / 17 angry

I lost 2 happy face that were saying "we are happy to live in this city". so the real cost of whipping here was : +1 unhappy for 10 more turns, -3pop, -2 happy for an unknown number of turns (maybe 5-10; maybe forever) and still 2 revolted citizen that do not work.

It is true that after the cat attack, it didn't matter anymore but still ..

happily the end of the french empire will get me ride of all the war weariness and hopefully it will have to build up again from 0 for the next war..

 

[Cam_H]

I like what you write.
but you made a mistake : If I remember correctly, round 3 was from 875BC up to 1000AD and not 875AD.

Thanks for pointing it out ... two rounds (from end-of-turn); 875BC > 125AD, then 125AD > 1000AD. I have since fixed it.

 

[Cam_H]

My voting

I am reluctant to outline who I voted for, however my philosophy was that I had in my mind one single objective for Germany in the last round, and that was to secure the continent for ourselves. In this regard, everyone failed. I would like to see an emphasis on warfare in this game, given that our variant demands it and play at 'higher levels' pretty well require it.

I voted for two Monarch-player games and one Prince-player game:

The two Monarch games that I voted for happened to be the two best that best embraced the objective of taking the continent.

I assessed all other games on a weighted combination of; (a.) score, (b.) score relative to next competitor - in all instances Mali iirc, (c.) 'soldiers' as per demographics screen, and (d.) the count of the top three most scientific cities at 50% research.

My game (for anyone who cares )

I was penalised for sticking with the Police State civic throughout the entire round in terms of science, but it was the right choice given my objective. I feel that my game would quickly recover after the war in terms of commerce with switching civics. As noted in my blurb, I opted not to trade much with Mali, which held both of us back. There's the already-outlined argument that it is irrelevant if we trade with Mali or not, as Arabia and Rome are our future enemies, but I'm not entirely swayed that we wouldn't see Mali accelerate their research as well (even gifts?), especially since we can self-research so effectively.

There were some real moves in my game though:

I had quite a number of Workers holed up in cities that I captured but wanted to protect. The frontlines headed north, but I had failed to wake them up.

I didn't go with Mercantilism when it came up - I didn't have Astronomy and can't trade with France, so all trade routes were internal anyway. At the time I didn't want a turn of anarchy, but in hindsight it would have been better to swap. Indeed despite the war weariness that Police State was keeping largely under control, the Mercantilism/Representation combo could have worked well in the last 10-15 turns.

Not quite enough units - despite several cities working as unit pumps, while in Police State I should have kept churning them out from more cities. I'm confident that the war with France would have been over before 1500AD with a greater emphasis on unit production. Uncharacteristically, I hardly used the whip in this round.

 

[cabert]

to follow cam_h's motion:
My voting
Well, i had a very quick look this time. Most important factors in IMHO were :
- %landmass (pop is easier to get)
- necessary techs available
- troops to storm through the continent

So i didn't even look further. I did a very complete comparison on the economic side, but cavalente was in a golden age for just one more turn, so it was no very relevent.

For this reasons all my votes went to the monarch players, which IMHO looked better (assuming cam would be able to get liberalism bonus for astronomy, though a bit late = not ideal timing for invasion)

My game

I played in the night, half asleep, then played with a bad headache (those are my excuses ). I did more moves than i dare remember. Including senseless trades to JC . So i'm glad we go with another!

My biggest mistakes :
- too low on troops+going out of vassality gave me low promotion troops
- not building the HE (wanted a coastal big production, and ended up forgetting it !)
- not going soon enough for globe theater (nationhood/slavery)
- bribing a lowly civ against a bigger, peaceloving, one (JC vs MM)
- mismanagement of war vs isabella (peace treaty! when i could call for a cease fire and just send a gallion to the island!),
- attacking nappy without the needed troops (so capturing city i cannot hold!)

some tricks i used :
- trading for everything isa had before engaging in a war with her (giving her techs that won't help her out)
- whipping the caravels (all of you did, so nothing to brag)
- trading with mansa musa for the fastest teching possible (giving him an edge in his continent, but who cares?)
- trading for the AI's world maps (i know everything of the other continent!)
- going fo astronomy asap, for the one way big trade routes + ressource trading
- going for engineering fast, for the road movement bonus (reinforcement come 50% faster!)
- building hordes of missionaries for happiness + money
- using the GA to give me tiles to work + fast moves

about playing style,
- i'm one of those mansa style traders : every tech i can trade, i do it! Only exception are those giving you a unique advantage (i won't trade education before i'm 2/3 turns from liberalism for example) .
- I'm also a slaver. Going out of slavery is something i don't like to do (i feel naked)!
- For the rest, i tried to adapt to both our traits (so whipping granary and forges!) and our goal : domination requires war!

 

[Calavente]

I will proceed as the ME players ..

My vote :
As I proposed only 3 ME players and none of them was the winner, it seems that my way of evaluating game is not so good.

This said : these were my criterias:
-overall score (didn't checked for the follower's score though)
-rough impression on number/power of units + gold available + gpt at 0% if needed to upgrade.
-rough estimation of techs. (but I didn't put astro high enough)
-number of city / estimated power of nappy.

I didn't checked what would happen next turn: as too much damaged units ...Etc. neither did I checked much some criterium such as devellopment of cities / production of units, use of former GP ..etc. (all was rough and not scientifically studied as I did not spent much time on this evaluation)

My loosing moves :
-staying with the colossus : why did I even bothered to build it at first ?
-not making enough units
-not waiting for enough units before attacking a city :
---it gives supply costs for a longer time
---I lost some very well promoted but not so strong units just to take the city in 1 turn. when I should have waited to have some loosy units to do the job.
-sacrifying well promoted (lvl4+) mounted units when I was aiming for cavalry as my offensive unit
-not going quickly enough to astronomy (but that could have waited for after razing nappy)
-not settling HE and NE (but I still not know how to choose in which city to put them and why)
-not researching/exchanging guild, banking, and engineering
-many other points I am not yet aware of.

my good moves (IMO) :
-going to free religion to maximise research + take profit from all safe religions (with the holy city in my hands) I have in possession (judaism/ buddhism/hinduism/confucianism) take profit of added income (shrine + 12 missionaries available at the same time) happiness (+1 happy per religion), and culture input : +1 per religion, +5 if holy city : makes a lot for regrowing/owning land tiles.
-making monestry and missionaries for all four religions : 12 missio available at the same time instead of 3 if you stick to the state religion.
-razing the spanish city near the gems and relocating it one tiles south. that city becomes much more interesting.
-occupying ligurian (barb city on the south-west) very quickly
-going for powerful units (cav)
-going for lot of cats at the end of the game
-going for taj mahal to boost the obtention of gunpowder AND get lot of money.
-devellop spanish cities before going to war with nappy.

some moves I am uncertain of :
-not wanting to trade for calendar because the 10 turn fat cross did so well in newly conquered cities that had not my state religion (I was not yet in FR), and I didn't have so much calendar ressources. banana/dye and incense. and not in so many cities
-using the GP to make the Hindu shrine, as I already had 3 shrines...
-going for cav instead of gren + canons.

 

[Cam_H]

Cabert and Calavente,

Thanks for your thoughts. Cabert ... your Mansa is my Tokugawa!

- trading for everything isa had before engaging in a war with her (giving her techs that won't help her out)

Good move ... one guess as to who didn't do that!

some moves I am uncertain of :
-not wanting to trade for calendar because the 10 turn fat cross did so well in newly conquered cities that had not my state religion (I was not yet in FR), and I didn't have so much calendar ressources. banana/dye and incense. and not in so many cities
-using the GP to make the Hindu shrine, as I already had 3 shrines...
-going for cav instead of gren + canons.

None of your worries would concern me unduly.

Calendar vs. Obsoleting Stonehenge: Unhappiness and unhealthiness was not an uncontrollable problem, so access to a small number of plantation-based resources was not likely to be game-changing. It depends on the value of the trade.

The Kashi Wishwanath: The Great Prophet was probably going to lightbulb towards Divine Right which in this game I think you can live without. One debatable option might be to pick up Versailles for the home continent, and then build the Forbidden Palace somewhere on the other continent, but really the timing is far from ideal to make this work well. The choice to me is whether it's better to get Shrine income and a bit of religious spread, or otherwise have a Specialist Priest in one of your core cities that has buildings (and possibly civics) that will multiply the Priest's contribution to the city. Without looking at the game, my guess would be to turn the Great Prophet into a Specialist in Berlin or Pigswill's City for a better short-term reward.

Cavalry vs. Grenadiers/Cannons: A case can be put either way, but Steel does put you on the path to Combustion, which will make off-shore warfare much easier. I guess it depends on whether you're confident in going with Galleons with Catapults and Cavalry, or would rather hold back for Transporters with Cannons and mixed arms. Me - I'd be happy to go with horses on wooden ships, so I'm 'OK' with your decision.

 

[cabert]

Cabert and Calavente,

Thanks for your thoughts. Cabert ... your Mansa is my Tokugawa!

yeah! i should give mansa a hard rocker's look and use him as avatar

 

[Calavente]

thanks

ouf !!

now I will only have to try to understand why I made some of the moves I made, and find the other ones... and try to not make them again.

 

[cabert]

thanks

ouf !!

now I will only have to try to understand why I made some of the moves I made, and find the other ones... and try to not make them again.

about your "losing" moves, the colossus was so cheap it's no even a problem. It's worth building for the denial value on other civs+culture for this city. The rest are real mistakes.
Other things i found strange in your game is building order. I don't remember the details, but i have the feeling you didn't take into account our traits.
Half priced granaries, half priced forges are huge for a whipping civilization , even more so when you have gold, silver and gems.

 

[Calavente]

oups..
you're right, I only build those for their actual value : granary or prod or happy. I just take the reduced cost as a bonus.
so i think that means I'm not really play the traits to there full extent.

I will try to think reversed : "that thing is cheap : I have to see if it can improve something in this city!!"

 

[cabert]

oups..
you're right, I only build those for their actual value : granary or prod or happy. I just take the reduced cost as a bonus.
so i think that means I'm not really play the traits to there full extent.

I will try to think reversed : "that thing is cheap : I have to see if it can improve something in this city!!"

cheap granary and cheap forges are really just inviting you to whip for them + they are the ultimate whipping tools (in vanilla)

 

[Calavente]

Here is my game..

..

...

I won !!!!


61110 points !!! never got more than 20000


hmm..

I will update this post tomorrow or even later with the logs.

 

[pigswill]

Congratulations Calavente. A very respectable score indeed.