Pericles Deity Fractal NHNE Low sea

[Fish Man]

@krikav

Spoiler :

Something I noted in your save...Willem and Wang are impressively behind. They’re both still flinging rifles and cannons at each other! If you can take them both on with infantry + artillery with a few anti-tanks for protection, you might not even have to touch Charlie. Let him do what he wants; with his tech flavors he’s almost guaranteed to dillydally in stealth before going for the last few SS techs.

 

[krikav]

To T274

Spoiler :

I didn't really want peace, but I wanted the gold, and I did want the trade to be fair, so had to do it.

My war against SB went pretty well, except that I forgot to put city garissons in some cities...

T232 Charly declares on Wang, so long Wang!!

I finish Mass Media and give it to WvO, and gift him a GEng popped.

I have no idea why I was up for the vote, Charly had more votes than me...? But I got the chair here. Consulting the advisors I saw that a diplo victory vote was between WvO and Charly, so I instead used it to get myself into enmancipation for free, for extra happines. Farming everything everywhere and settling alot of junk filler cities.

Tried to save Wang (well, I was trying to avoid having Charly get more cities and therefore more population.)
Really Wang? You defied that?
Oh well, he capitulated next turn.

Finishing of SB. He fought valiantly, and my lack of resupplies made the war very drawn out.

Trying to build up "stationary spy" bonus, lost an insane amount of spies here, 3-4 every turn.
I got enough pop to be up for the diplo win vote against WvO now, but unfortunatly next vote is about the chair again.

Some of my cities had huge problems with Charlys insane culture. He was in free speach and also had creative constructions.

He launches his spaceship.

I do get the chair, thanks charly!

cont...

 

[krikav]

To T272 continued.

Spoiler :

Turn before the vote...

Oh, I popped a GArtist, tried to culture bomb, but not even that got me my first ring cows back to my capital.
I even built a cathedral here!

Get Charly into vassalage and OR with the hope to get him to friendly. (Also gave him 3k gold).
But I had racked up some spy diplo hits, and also I completely forgot about supplying him with resources. I had shut of all trades to starve him of some happy/health and forgot to put some back up again.

And with that, my hope dies.

GG Charly! You deserved that one!

Thanks for the map @BornInCantaloup !

 

[krikav]

@Fish Man

Spoiler :

That plan also sounds plausable.

A lot of "coulda woulda shoulda" in this game for me.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

The Krikavian rollercoaster...

Spoiler :

I have no idea why I was up for the vote, Charly had more votes than me...? But I got the chair here. Consulting the advisors I saw that a diplo victory vote was between WvO and Charly, so I instead used it to get myself into enmancipation for free, for extra happines.

This is really, really odd. I'm not an expert on diplo but it defies my understanding.
a) If Charlie had more pop than you did, the Election vote should have been between him and Willem ;
b) Once you're elected, the Victory vote should be between you and Willem.

In the 5 turns between the 2 votes, Charlie captured from 6 to 8 cities (depending who plays first). My guess is that you were indeed ahead in pop at the time of the Election and then Charlie got ahead by the time of the first vote. Why he'd appear in the Diplo Victory screen whereas you've got the chair, that I don't understand.
If you have saves right before 1660 AD... could you share ? I mean... if you're up for it, you should try to replay 1650-1660 and actually propose the Victory vote.
I'd be up to toy with that, try and see what's up if you're not.

Is this a glitch in the display that robbed you of a hard fought victory ?

ps : it's extremely neat to gift Mass Media and a GE that way...

First part : Player plays first, AIs play in turn from left to right :

Spoiler :

Pericles is team 1, Saladin is team 2, etc. If in doubt, you can also see the teams order in the Worldbuilder or also in the Tech Trade screen.
--> Willem casts the UN vote and you have the most pop
--> Charlie plays his turn, captures 2 of Wang's cities and the pop of those cities gets registered in his vote (either at his end of turn or at Willem's next beginning of turn).
--> My guess is that's why Charlie appeared to have more votes than you.

There are some other possibilities that could explain the "discrepancy" but I think they all involve the ordering of actions in between turns.

 

[krikav]

@BornInCantaloup

Spoiler :

It was only the first chair vote which was abit odd. At that time I was not anywhere near Charly in votes so as far as I understand it, the fight over the chair would have been between him and WvO.


I'm almost sure that a replay from 234 would ensure a rather easy diplo victory at an earlier date than T270 too, if you build more spies earlier, put more EPs on charly early and pay more attention to diplo.
There was some votes where I had surpassed Charly in votes, but I was not yet ready to hold the vote for victory since I could not get Charly into vass/or (for Judaism) because I had not swapped EPs to him soon enough, and had not built enough spies.
He suprised me sometime along the line by making a switch out of vass/OR to free speach+free religion.

Have no problems ceding this victory to Charly, he played well (and I did not play perfect).
None of the fun was deprived from me in that loss.

 

[Fish Man]

A valiant attempt @krikav ! I'll call it a 50% win since you clearly had it within your grasp; just needed to do some things a tiny bit differently. And also I think out of all 4 of us you were the only non-reloader who went in blind, so you honestly did better than us all.

As for me...

Spoiler :

@Anysense , @krikav , and @BornInCantaloup : "You should finish with domination or conquest"

Me:

In all seriousness, though, I'm really tired of shuffling doomstacks around at this point. I could end this quickly with nukes or slower with tanks + bombers; with 30-some cities the world is mine to do as I please. But with such a great setup for a science victory (Mecca is an ideal cottage cap, Athens a great NE city, Mao's cities will be production behemoths once workshopped/milled, and Charlie put academies in four of his cities) it seems like such a waste and a hassle to do so much more needless killing. So, I think I'll sit back, factory up, build a spaceship, and enjoy the endgame after 5000 years of nonstop war.

Mao capped after I took basically everything with supercavs, circa 1500AD:

Spoiler :

Oh, another interesting tidbit...amidst all the commotion only 1 or 2 people went astronomy for a long while (Mao and SB, of all folks!). Mao because he really wanted communism instead of anything that would save him, like rifles...which is surprisingly in character, I guess. And SB because...well, I don't know. Maybe he actually realized he needed astro to trade with other civs and have any hope of catching up; but I highly doubt the AI is nearly that smart. So...in a bizarre occurrence, despite the existence of 16-city Wang and me tanking my economy throughout the game to whip, I'm first to physics, in probably literally the first and only deity game ever! This also means that I have a monopoly on electricity right now. You would think that Wang would be nearing advanced flight or something right now, and in fact given another 200 years that might be the case, but currently I'm just about caught up on tech.

Spoiler :

 

[krikav]

@Fish Man Thanks, but I was not puritan with any reloading though. Remember that I forgot to swap civics last turn of the GA so reloaded that, and some other moronic things too. So don't think I'm a saint in any way, that we save for BOTM, here it's fun in focus!

Regarding techpace etc:

Spoiler :

Except for Charly, which was in his own legue, I was also abit suprised that things didn't go even faster. I did manage to catch up somewhat and even got a few trades. I think that the relative dislike AI vs AI staved off some of the worst tech-trading.

I put EP on SB to see what he was doing, and it was fun to see him basically self-tech everything, if I would have traded him PP+gunpowder for education when I could, I would have boosted him significantly.

 

[Fish Man]

@Fish Man Thanks, but I was not puritan with any reloading though. Remember that I forgot to swap civics last turn of the GA so reloaded that, and some other moronic things too. So don't think I'm a saint in any way, that we save for BOTM, here it's fun in focus!

Regarding techpace etc:

Spoiler :

Except for Charly, which was in his own legue, I was also abit suprised that things didn't go even faster. I did manage to catch up somewhat and even got a few trades. I think that the relative dislike AI vs AI staved off some of the worst tech-trading.

I put EP on SB to see what he was doing, and it was fun to see him basically self-tech everything, if I would have traded him PP+gunpowder for education when I could, I would have boosted him significantly.

Spoiler :

Ah of course, knowing SB he probably spends 50% on espionage per turn anyways regardless. I considered shipping my cavs over to pay him a visit but he's 2 techs from rifles. So tanks vs rifles seems more entertaining and safer than cavs vs medieval. That is, assuming I care enough to conquer him anyways. With only 90 turns until my target win date it might not even be worth it.

...But of course I've always wanted to try tanks vs rifles on deity, so cowabunga it is! A lot of unusual firsts for supposedly such a cutthroat map.

@Fippy - the 4 people who have tried (myself included) all lost on the first attempt of this map. That probably meets the threshold to put this into the "prepare to cringe" thread, right? In just the first 5 turns there's plenty of cringe to be found in low sea level + jungled and boxed in.

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Thanks for the saves, krikav
Look, much better. 1660 AD Diplomatic victory :

Spoiler :

a) Population count : At the time of the first vote, Charlie's demographics are far ahead of yours.
This is because he has plenty of size 17 cities whereas yours are smaller. You do have about 10 more cities, however.
For the purpose of demographics, population points are weighted, so that the 20th pop is worth a lot more than the 1st.
For the purpose of UN/AP votes, population points are not weighted, so that the 20th pop and the 1st are worth the same.

Turn the vote is cast :

Spoiler :

5 turns later, first diplo vote :

Spoiler :

b) Having control over the chair doesn't guarantee a spot in the election. It's owner vs highest pop... as advertised, duh.
Would have needed some means to bribe Charlie off of Wang.


Thanks for playing, krikav ! It was a good game and, I agree, a well deserved victory for 30 cities HRE.

@Fippy - the 4 people who have tried (myself included) all lost on the first attempt of this map. That probably meets the threshold to put this into the "prepare to cringe" thread, right? In just the first 5 turns there's plenty of cringe to be found in low sea level + jungled and boxed in.

I don't believe I'll win but I wouldn't say I've lost either I played my first 100 turns fair and then, ok, I indulged myself a little but... I'm fine with that.

This isn't Fippy's map type, though. You won't force her. She likes her no resource, no river, [strike]no tundra[/strike], no forests games where you pay the full 500 hammers for the Pyramids... I don't like those maps, different tastes. I don't like the isolation maps either.
And yes, Low Sea is kinda hard : the AIs aren't slowed down nearly as much as you are by the early barbarian threat and, if you give them enough time, they can set up proper Empires. Somehow, it moves the cursor, it makes it all the more important to execute a timing attack. As you showed... cutting the AIs before they can take off.


edit : that second save
Charlie's researching Future tech, has 8500 gold for trade and pu 20.000 espionage points on you... woah ! The man is serious. Rathaus corporations, too, that's neat.

 

[krikav]

Yes, different types, different tastes.
I like these types of maps too, but the ones Fippy usually present have one serious advantage in that they seldom come down to having to stroll around and manage a huge number of cities, something that I usually think is just a annoying chore.

@BornInCantaloup Thanks for looking into the saves and thanks for clarifying how demographics work, will be way easier to make judgements in comming games.
And regarding Charly, yeah... Quite the serious man.
Did you notice that culture pressure on my moved capital? Cathedral, odeon/theatre/the whole culture building kit. A culture bomb and despite running a few artists every now and then I could still not hold my first ring!

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Yes, I saw and you mentionned the Creative Constructions... and Free Speech.
Why did you move your capital by the way ? I thought you were running Vassalage and Bureaucracy doesn't do much for large Empires anyway (the High civic cost is a killer). Espionage discount ?

The thing with culture bombs is that they don't add to your plot culture. They just add to your city culture and allow you to influence further tiles (if you were below 5000 culture, anyway). So, bombing a city won't revolutionize the situation, as far as tile ownership is concerned. If it gets you an extra border pop, then you "just" add 20 plot culture / turn on your tiles.
Which is something (20/turn) but not really relevant in the face of a cultural Corporation + Broadcast tower + Free speech (that easily goes above 200 culture / turn ; I reached 550 culture/turn without resorting to the slider, in my top cultural city, in Isabella's BOTM, where I did exactly that).

And I like those maps, too (go figure ^^). I think they offer a great variety in map reading and decision making

 

[krikav]

Regarding the capital, I can't really say, loads of small things.

I did run vassalage almost all the time, save for short burst in the golden ages.
Capital move was partly to get lower maintenence, tried to take a city where it would make some difference. But seeing that I had already built forbidden palace in cortinth (about the center of my empire I think) it was probably a moot point.

If I had been more clever I would have waited with forbidden palace and gotten that on SBs continent instead.

It did give me some EP discount though, that I'm sure about, but I don't know if that was significant.
Just another flexible move I guess, for periods I thought I was going for tanks/bombers, maybe decided the capital move then, and didn't think to reexamine that idea?
Oh, and I built an academy in that city at some point too.

 

[Fish Man]

Spoiler :

It is done. T273 space race victory, just narrowly short of sub-1800AD. It's always fun to go from fighting runaways to being the runaway after swallowing up the top dog, especially on maps like these. Sadly I didn't get the chance to, but I could've used tanks against longbows at one point vs SB (instead just finished it with cavs).True to my prediction, Beijing was just about the best IW city you could ask for. I think I topped 6500 bpt at one point, during the final golden age. With odeons and 4 vassals I didn't even have to switch out civics to deal with emancipation anger, enabling full-throttle communist caste workshops. Crazy stuff, but then again that's par for the course on low sea level maps.

Spoiler :

 

[BornInCantaloup]

Well played Fish Man ! You were off to a good start and didn't slip in the finish.

Sorry for the delay, wasn't around.