P666-02 Fix Another Trash Game
- Thread starter Cam_H
- Start date
I'm curious to know what Armstrong and Pigswill think about tech trading "like crazy" I've been doing it more based on Cabert's advice, but I just dont like trading with Mansa either.
I played a space race game recently and the key factor was cities on rivers. Not as Armstrong said for the cottages, but for the state property, workshops and watermills. I took two capitals, a few other river cities and boom. Way ahead of the AI ,on Prince.
About rushing games. It's hard to slow down. I hit the save button and try to just look around the empire. tweak things, zoom out, think about it. I find, zoom out and use the culture button is good to get an overview and some strategy ideas. In war I force myself to city manage between every move if I can.
I played a space race game recently and the key factor was cities on rivers. Not as Armstrong said for the cottages, but for the state property, workshops and watermills. I took two capitals, a few other river cities and boom. Way ahead of the AI ,on Prince.
About rushing games. It's hard to slow down. I hit the save button and try to just look around the empire. tweak things, zoom out, think about it. I find, zoom out and use the culture button is good to get an overview and some strategy ideas. In war I force myself to city manage between every move if I can.
mice, about trading, i trade with the backwards JC and cyrus first, trying to give them only techs that MM and roosevelt already have. This way, I can avoid MM trading like crazy! In fact in this game I'm really the tech whore!
we don't need HBR, no sweat then
It's not limitations, it's efficient trading!
If you trade a monopoly tech, you really must trade it as largely as possible. Even as a gift, sometimes.
If you don't, others will trade it and gain something from it.
You don't want them to gain anything, other than what you give them!
It's not limitations, it's efficient trading!
If you trade a monopoly tech, you really must trade it as largely as possible. Even as a gift, sometimes.
If you don't, others will trade it and gain something from it.
You don't want them to gain anything, other than what you give them!
pigswill
fly (one day)
I played through from my 2400bc save up to 100ad. I went for a theology Oracle slingshot (got Christianity, missed out on Judaism) then researched CoL (got Confucianism). I whipped a cheap temple in oracle city to run a priest specialist and was able to get two prophets before completing Glib in 50ad. Used first prophet for a shrine (allowing me to run an extra priest), second prophet I burned on CS (easy to do if you avoid monarchy) also in 50ad. I almost certainly messed up by spawning missionaries instead of settlers but way in front in technology.
On the subject of tech trading: once I'd got CS I traded theology/ monotheism and MC in one turn with three AIs (Mansa aint trading, most unusual) and in exchange I picked up monarchy, currency, calendar, 300G, 150G and 70G (I'd already researched construction).
One aspect of the game that's worth considering is using oracle slingshot to enhance your traits. For industrious it makes sense to slingshot to MC for half price forges. If you're organised then CoL slingshot for cheap courthouses is good. However for Monte (spiritual/aggresive) I think theology is the superior slingshot:theocracy gives +2XP on top of cheap barracks and resource free combat1 jags. You research OR on the way to theocracy, spiritual means you can easily flit between OR for peaceful building and theocracy for war. With Monte you basically fight your way to a lead; the sooner the better.
Cabert: I asked for Gandhi? What a foolish thing to do. Must be getting old, I can't remember how bad my memory used to be.
Still considering how to play on from VuDu's 125ad save.
On the subject of tech trading: once I'd got CS I traded theology/ monotheism and MC in one turn with three AIs (Mansa aint trading, most unusual) and in exchange I picked up monarchy, currency, calendar, 300G, 150G and 70G (I'd already researched construction).
One aspect of the game that's worth considering is using oracle slingshot to enhance your traits. For industrious it makes sense to slingshot to MC for half price forges. If you're organised then CoL slingshot for cheap courthouses is good. However for Monte (spiritual/aggresive) I think theology is the superior slingshot:theocracy gives +2XP on top of cheap barracks and resource free combat1 jags. You research OR on the way to theocracy, spiritual means you can easily flit between OR for peaceful building and theocracy for war. With Monte you basically fight your way to a lead; the sooner the better.
Cabert: I asked for Gandhi? What a foolish thing to do. Must be getting old, I can't remember how bad my memory used to be.
Still considering how to play on from VuDu's 125ad save.
pigswill said:
Well seeing that we decimated P666-01, I thought that even though we were jumping a level and going for a 'peaceful' victory type (however much bloodshed may be involved
) that we should have a couple of tribes that will put a lot of pressure on in the final stages of the game provided that Montezuma allowed them to live.I proposed that Mansa Musa, Washington, and Huayna Capac be included as competitors, and you (Pigswill) said "How could you forget that industrious space racer Gandhi?"
I moderated it to an extent, and customised the game with just Mansa Musa and Gandhi as the only pre-determined competitors.
VuDu said:
that's the tricky part!
In this game, I don't plan on keeping too many friends alive
, so it's not really a big problem + spiritual allows you to switch religions without anarchy too = jumping from one religious block to the other when needed.However, seeing that they won't trade between worst enemies, you often can trade the same tech to 3 civs, leaving only the odd man out of the deals, without risking too much :
in this game I traded with the hinduist block first, then
when i saw they had nothing else to trade, I tried trading with FdR and Mansa Musa, the jew block.
They wouldn't trade tech, so i traded ressources, improving relations with them. After a while I could trade techs with them, and guess what?
JC attacked me
Obviously trading with his worst enemy (probably MM) made me a bad guy!But who cares about JC? I took down his "army" (a few HA, a few archers and one catapult
) and 2 cities. After that he asked for peace, with I gave him for a good price .conclusions :
- trading all over the place really does harm relations
- you cannot have good relations to everybody
- Getting war declared vs you is often not a big deal
Cam, you did a good job in setting up this game.
* There really is room for a loss, Fdr, MM and Ganhi are monster launchers,
* monarch obviously is a good level (not too hard for a win, but not in everybody's comfort zone)
* space racing makes a win in the 1500's not very likely
I finished the round up to 1000 AD, and I really want to see others' games.
BTW here is my save and a little info on it .
Armstrong didn't show up to say he'd play, and you need the saturday to be able to play.
I suggest we push the deadline to saturday evening in your time zone (should be saturday morning 7 am ? east coast time, 2 pm in France), to give you time for at least a rushed game.
How do you all feel about it? I know we didn't postpone the deadline for Armstrong, but he still had time for a rushed game, and all others had finished the round already, so it's a bit different now.
* There really is room for a loss, Fdr, MM and Ganhi are monster launchers,
* monarch obviously is a good level (not too hard for a win, but not in everybody's comfort zone)
* space racing makes a win in the 1500's not very likely
I finished the round up to 1000 AD, and I really want to see others' games.
BTW here is my save and a little info on it .
Spoiler :
), but it pays off to be safe from dogpiling. Check the power graph, we're in second place now, so any dogpiling should hit cyrus and not us :
)Armstrong didn't show up to say he'd play, and you need the saturday to be able to play.
I suggest we push the deadline to saturday evening in your time zone (should be saturday morning 7 am ? east coast time, 2 pm in France), to give you time for at least a rushed game.
How do you all feel about it? I know we didn't postpone the deadline for Armstrong, but he still had time for a rushed game, and all others had finished the round already, so it's a bit different now.
pigswill
fly (one day)
Here's a game to demonstrate cabert's superiority
Agree with cabert re deferring deadline so Cam H can submit a save. Doesn't stop us looking and evaluating other games beforehand so shouldn't have to delay voting.
Also agree that a victory is certainly not assured looking at Teddy's lead.
Spoiler :
Agree with cabert re deferring deadline so Cam H can submit a save. Doesn't stop us looking and evaluating other games beforehand so shouldn't have to delay voting.
Also agree that a victory is certainly not assured looking at Teddy's lead.
Thanks guys for agreeing to push out the deadline for what I hope will be only about half a day or so. 
There's no way I will be able to play the following round in time though ... unless I bring my Civ disc to work.
. Gandhi could be dead now ... Samurai rush. 
I'm very optimistic ... while Tenochtitlan's fat-X is great, our starting spot on the continent is to my mind not preferential as we have rivals on all sides, and it's therefore expensive to defend when compared to P666-01 when there was a clear south-to-north progression. Then again, distance maintenance costs won't be too bad as we 'expand'.
The AI's technology progression through the Modern Era tends not to be optimal for non-warmongers, and there's often a window of opportunity to build the Space Elevator. The value of this Wonder is a debatable one, although I must confess that I've yet to win a Monarch Spacerace without it. ... anyway, we'll deal with that one later.
There's no way I will be able to play the following round in time though ... unless I bring my Civ disc to work.
Roosevelt was random, but the good thing is that he's a wonder buildercabert said:
. Gandhi could be dead now ... Samurai rush. I'm very optimistic ... while Tenochtitlan's fat-X is great, our starting spot on the continent is to my mind not preferential as we have rivals on all sides, and it's therefore expensive to defend when compared to P666-01 when there was a clear south-to-north progression. Then again, distance maintenance costs won't be too bad as we 'expand'.
The AI's technology progression through the Modern Era tends not to be optimal for non-warmongers, and there's often a window of opportunity to build the Space Elevator. The value of this Wonder is a debatable one, although I must confess that I've yet to win a Monarch Spacerace without it. ... anyway, we'll deal with that one later.
Thanks for your patience. I've attached my game.
Round Objectives : Finish Great Library, Take out Roman Empire, Education.
Need for War
With the threat of two, possibly three 'runaway civs', I feel it is important to improve the overall dominance of our empire - if we can't beat them with quality, we'll beat them with quantity - lots of cities with lots of production. Rome is the weakling of the pack, although if left alone, Julius Caesar does tend to build up huge city garrisons. To me, there was our natural target.
Specialisation
As an aside, I renamed cities with the view to extending better roles, in case a
moment occurred and for instance my great 'unit pump' all of a sudden started on a Marketplace. I felt that T6 (Sugar, Bananas, Jungle) 'could' make a reasonable GP farm, but not being on a river might lead to 
problems.
Narrative of Events
Pre-Turn and Opening few
A little whipping despite already low population, Workers concentrated on building and hooking up Plantations and Cottages (esp. around our capital).
Built the Kashi Wishwanath, although this will pollute our Great Scientist pool with Great Prophet points.
Mansa Musa demands Metal Casting ... reluctantly conceded it as the southern cities were relatively exposed in terms of military weakness.
250AD
Taoism fidl, faux-revolution over and convert to the Caste System. Specialist Artists force border pops during the next few turns in T4, T5, and T6. T1 also gets to run some extra Specialist Scientists. City tiles rearranged with a reduced focus on
. Mansa builds the Sistine Chapel in Timbuktu.
375AD
Civil Service and The Great Library both come in. Switch out of the Caste System now the borders have popped, and adopt Slavery and Bureaucracy. Begin researching Machinery.
540AD
With the amassing of forces on the fringe of Neapolis in place, we 'backstab' the Romans. In the following turns we will lose a Worker in the south to a wandering Roman Archer, while a mini-SoD from Cumae caused some pillaging problems around T1 before meeting their own doom.
The first Roman city falls, our empire is finally connected to the eastern Stone, and The Hanging Gardens is commenced. Units are promoted to Heroic Epic status, and much of our treasury is spent upgrading Axes to Maces following the discovery of Machinery. The Roman Horse Archers have me slightly concerned (as do the unsighted Mali War Elephants), so I go after Engineering, which also has the excellent road movement bonus.
Finally the first Great Scientist arrives in 720AD, and unsurprisingly sets up an Academy in our Capital.
From 800AD
Roman cities continue to fall, and suicide Catapults on two occasions actually withdraw from combat! Technology is refocussed towards Education by researching Paper. Wonders almost 'cascade' in other empires within a few turns; Mali builds The Hanging Gardens (we get a refund) and Chichen Itza, while Notre Dame and Angkor Wat are also fidl. I opt to re-open borders with Mali.
Having taken all but Rome itself, I acknowledged that war weariness was starting to become noticeable while our units were just a little thin. Arretium was taken in 840AD by a single Maceman, but lost the next turn due to his 4.0/8 strength. It would take until 940AD before it was re-captured and a peace deal was struck with Rome:
Those last acquisitions now have a bit of cultural pressure to deal with. Both Ravenna and Arretium were kept as they both have access to Fish, and could make decent coastal commerce contributors.
Quite a few units didn't make it through to 1000AD, losing several 70-ish% battles, but power-wise we are respectable against all but the Americans who lead us in several areas, although we are about equivalent in land area.
All of the religions are now founded - Islam went in 980AD.
Reviewing the Objectives). Overall we are competitive with Persia and Mali, and we will need to use our 'accumulated mass' to advantage when (or if) we go head to head with America by striking at pressure points. I have turned a bit of a 'blind eye' to religion, but there is plenty of opportunity to improve things in that department also, most notably getting something beyond Hinduism in our science city!
Round Objectives : Finish Great Library, Take out Roman Empire, Education.
Need for War
With the threat of two, possibly three 'runaway civs', I feel it is important to improve the overall dominance of our empire - if we can't beat them with quality, we'll beat them with quantity - lots of cities with lots of production. Rome is the weakling of the pack, although if left alone, Julius Caesar does tend to build up huge city garrisons. To me, there was our natural target.
Specialisation
As an aside, I renamed cities with the view to extending better roles, in case a
moment occurred and for instance my great 'unit pump' all of a sudden started on a Marketplace. I felt that T6 (Sugar, Bananas, Jungle) 'could' make a reasonable GP farm, but not being on a river might lead to problems. Narrative of Events
Pre-Turn and Opening few
- Renamed cities.
- In all instances emphasised .
- Attacking units were corralled to the border near Neapolis.
- Terminated 'Open Borders' agreement with Roosevelt and Mansa Musa (don't want to feed the runaway civs with any trade).
- Made the following trade (we don't have Stonehenge, but do have access to Plantation-required resources):
<Image removed : JC gives Cal for Curr>
A little whipping despite already low population, Workers concentrated on building and hooking up Plantations and Cottages (esp. around our capital).
Built the Kashi Wishwanath, although this will pollute our Great Scientist pool with Great Prophet points.
Mansa Musa demands Metal Casting ... reluctantly conceded it as the southern cities were relatively exposed in terms of military weakness.
250AD
Taoism fidl, faux-revolution over and convert to the Caste System. Specialist Artists force border pops during the next few turns in T4, T5, and T6. T1 also gets to run some extra Specialist Scientists. City tiles rearranged with a reduced focus on
. Mansa builds the Sistine Chapel in Timbuktu.375AD
Civil Service and The Great Library both come in. Switch out of the Caste System now the borders have popped, and adopt Slavery and Bureaucracy. Begin researching Machinery.
540AD
With the amassing of forces on the fringe of Neapolis in place, we 'backstab' the Romans. In the following turns we will lose a Worker in the south to a wandering Roman Archer, while a mini-SoD from Cumae caused some pillaging problems around T1 before meeting their own doom.
The first Roman city falls, our empire is finally connected to the eastern Stone, and The Hanging Gardens is commenced. Units are promoted to Heroic Epic status, and much of our treasury is spent upgrading Axes to Maces following the discovery of Machinery. The Roman Horse Archers have me slightly concerned (as do the unsighted Mali War Elephants), so I go after Engineering, which also has the excellent road movement bonus.
Finally the first Great Scientist arrives in 720AD, and unsurprisingly sets up an Academy in our Capital.
From 800AD
Roman cities continue to fall, and suicide Catapults on two occasions actually withdraw from combat! Technology is refocussed towards Education by researching Paper. Wonders almost 'cascade' in other empires within a few turns; Mali builds The Hanging Gardens (we get a refund) and Chichen Itza, while Notre Dame and Angkor Wat are also fidl. I opt to re-open borders with Mali.
Having taken all but Rome itself, I acknowledged that war weariness was starting to become noticeable while our units were just a little thin. Arretium was taken in 840AD by a single Maceman, but lost the next turn due to his 4.0/8 strength. It would take until 940AD before it was re-captured and a peace deal was struck with Rome:
<Image removed - JC offers HBR, Feud, 20
for Peace>
for Peace>Those last acquisitions now have a bit of cultural pressure to deal with. Both Ravenna and Arretium were kept as they both have access to Fish, and could make decent coastal commerce contributors.
Quite a few units didn't make it through to 1000AD, losing several 70-ish% battles, but power-wise we are respectable against all but the Americans who lead us in several areas, although we are about equivalent in land area.
All of the religions are now founded - Islam went in 980AD.
Reviewing the Objectives
- The Great Library was indeed built in our capital.
- Education is due in seven turns.
- The Romans were not destroyed outright, but reduced to their capital alone.
). Overall we are competitive with Persia and Mali, and we will need to use our 'accumulated mass' to advantage when (or if) we go head to head with America by striking at pressure points. I have turned a bit of a 'blind eye' to religion, but there is plenty of opportunity to improve things in that department also, most notably getting something beyond Hinduism in our science city!