Post a (tough) Deity map for me to play

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Looking forward to how much of a one-sided bloodbath that's going to end up being . As for strategy, what are you planning to do with the three stooges? I imagine that Genghis is going to get send to the bottom of the ocean and that Justinian's lifespan will depend largely if not entirely on how the diplo situation works out (if Julius DoWs Justinian and send his garrison army away I imagine you'll end up "siding" with Justinian...briefly). What of Julius, though? Will you try to wipe him out completely or vassal him? And from there, what's the path to however you plan to win the game?

 

[Kaitzilla]

Spoiler :

Looking forward to how much of a one-sided bloodbath that's going to end up being . As for strategy, what are you planning to do with the three stooges? I imagine that Genghis is going to get send to the bottom of the ocean and that Justinian's lifespan will depend largely if not entirely on how the diplo situation works out (if Julius DoWs Justinian and send his garrison army away I imagine you'll end up "siding" with Justinian...briefly). What of Julius, though? Will you try to wipe him out completely or vassal him? And from there, what's the path to however you plan to win the game?

Comments below

Spoiler :

Genghis and Justinian will be my main focus in the short to medium term.
Getting Pyramids, The Great Wall, and that Buddhist shrine in the northwest where Justinian lives are all better empire strengtheners than trying to challenge the behemoth that is Rome.

For destroying Rome, that will be quite challenging because he built Chichen Itza for +25% defenses in all cities.
I've got a unit with more than 10xp, so I can build Heroic Epic in one of the 3 Genghis cities that settled a Great General and crank out 5xp Catapults.
The City 1 Raider and Accuracy combo is great for battering down large city defenses that have walls.
If Rome is going for Engineering and Castles, I might need a Great Spy from The Great Wall city to have an easy time knocking down defenses (blowing up Walls to negate Castles and bombarding the city defenses quickly to 0%, or just revolting the city to 0% for 1 turn for double the cost), or might just wait until Gunpowder units and Cannons.

Long term, if the rest of the AI are on another continent all sharing Hindu AP and teching fast, to continue warmonging I will have to strike the AP city from the sea and raze it to the ground.
As soon as I get a Hindu city, they can vote to force me to make peace every 10 turns.
AP victory won't be a worry as long as I keep 1 AI on my continent alive and don't let the AP religion spread there.

We will both have different religions running, so the odds of getting any of them Friendly on normal speed is extremely low.
The nice thing is that "We Fear You are Becoming Too Advanced" will be 0 for any new AI I meet, so trading should still be good.

Vassal Rome/Mongols/Byzantium?
That is probably a good option if I don't mind motherland anger.
Will have to check on my supply of happiness resources.
I don't have any Friendly AI on another continent where a vassal might mess up our ability to trade monopoly techs.

For a difficult map like this, I like going for Conquest Victories the most.

I'll attach the Willem Map that I played up until 425AD in case anyone wants to play it from there.

The early turns are quite stressful.



No mod means a bit more work since Great Person progress, "worst enemy", and power ratios aren't clearly illustrated.
Also, only Wonders give fail gold and not production overflow or units that can't be completed like missionaries. (Most mods patch that in)
Production decay on units is also irritating without any reminders.

 

[AcaMetis]

Spoiler :

Did not know that destroying a wall did that. I figured that once you got a castle it'd just do it's thing even if the wall got blown up.

As for taking Genghis and/Justinian as a vassal, what's Julius' opinion of them? Thinking about it (trying to at any rate ) both Genghis and Justinian are relatively weak and could be conquered and/or made a vassal if you so desire...but if having them as a vassal brings Julius down to Pleased you will have to slug it out with him right then and there, because trying to keep him out of potting mode until you've got Cannons ready to go seems too risky. Doable, surely...but he's literally got an army on your border as is. And IIRC if you vassal and/or conquer both Genghis and Justinian you'll be his only valid war target, meaning you couldn't get a warning if he starts plotting. Not keeping Genghis on a leash or in a lake means he might DoW you/Motherland anger/etc., and Justinian will only distract Julius once before either folding or dying, I'm pretty sure. All in all, seems too risky to not assume the worst and go for Julius immediately. But punching through castles and Chichen Itza with catapults, even Accuracy catapults...kinda painful .

Alternatively, if you completely conquer both Genghis and Justinian and keep Julius at Friendly you'd be able to tech to either Astronomy and/or Steel in peace, whichever you'd prefer to go for first. You'd have Julius around not being directed in terms of research, but between him being Friendly and you being Creative (both literally and figuratively, I'd say ) I don't think you'd have too much trouble with keeping your borders and making him useful. I expect him to go for Engineering sooner rather than later, and either way you'll need either it or it's prerequisite sooner rather than later as well.

 

[Kaitzilla]

The Vengeance Map remains quite interesting.

Write up Part 7

Continued from part 6

*SPOILER ALERT for the Willem Map that AcaMetis provided*

Spoiler :

T143 - 660AD

Spoiler :

In the 11 turns since the Peace Treaty, Genghis made peace with Justinian and everyone zoomed ahead in tech.
I really fell behind.
Traded Aesthetics+Calendar to Genghis for Metal Casting earlier and then I was done teching.

Spoiler :

To stay in the game, I had to turn to espionage.
Scanned my entire empire, and picked out the most useless city with the least food and renamed it Spy City.
Spread Buddhism from it and Taoism to it, then gifted it to Justinian.
It would be a safe spot in the next war with Genghis, and I could steal techs from it easily since it popped borders and had enough that I could get a decent culture espionage bonus from it for a while.
Stuffed it with 4 Spies.

Spoiler :

Then Declared War on Genghis again. (Another -1 diplo with Rome)

T144 - 680AD

Spoiler :

Crap, Genghis has Engineering!
My scout Spy just got retasked to blow up Genghis' capital's Walls in case a Castle gets built.

Captured Turfan for 148!
There was no time to bombard down 60% defense Walls with only 3 defenders.
Turfan is a very nice future city, especially with Pyramids.

Started pouring into Justinian for tech steals.

Spoiler :

T146 - 720AD

Spoiler :

Lost 1 of the 4 tech stealing Spies in Spy City.
Trading units with Genghis as he sends them north in 1's and 2's.
Will march towards his capital with my main stack as soon as the streaming counterattack stops.

All quiet on the northern front.

Spoiler :

T147 - 740AD

Spoiler :

Genghis strikes back!
A huge force of 2 War Elephants, 4 Keshiks, and a Catapult just landed in the north somehow and now my elephant city is in big trouble.
Whipping Spears everywhere and diverting my reinforcement stream north.
These Deity AI just seem to die hard.

Spoiler :

T148 - 760AD

Spoiler :

Genghis is stupid.
He sent 1 stack to be a snack for my main army.

He sent his northern stack south to capture my least important city.
Since it is 6 mounted units and 1 catapult, I can easily recapture the city with Spears + Elephant blob.

There is now a 100% defenses Castle in Genghis' capital Karakorum.
The Spy is now needed to blow up Walls or I will have to take 4 or 5 turns bombarding down defenses.
Thankfully my 2nd Great General was born and I gave 4 Catapults the City Raider I + Accuracy promos to bombard down city defenses twice as hard.

Spoiler :

T150 - 800AD

Spoiler :

Genghis took two turns bombarding down a city with 20% defenses.
Attacking the northern stack didn't work well with one War Elephant taking 0 damage, so I filled up the city with War Elephants and Spears.
Let him come.

Spoiler :

T151 - 820AD

Spoiler :

Northern threat is done.
Genghis had a golden opportunity to raze my elephant city to the ground, and he threw it away.

Spoiler :

More good news.
Rome has Knights and Guilds, and the world tech leader is not Rome, but the final 2 unknown civilizations are more backwards than me!
So maybe not an unstoppable 2nd continent?

Spoiler :

Justinian is the only civ with Paper, but now it's time for a gamble.
I switched to Taoism!

It gives me a -40% bonus because Taosim is in Spy City and Justinian is running Buddhism.
I also have the Tao holy city.
Without the holy city I'd only get a wimpy -25% bonus I think.

Very dangerous because now Rome is Pleased with me and he could start plotting any turn for war.
A small chance since he is just as likely to target Justinian as me, but there is still a chance.
Will have to hope the 90% no_war_probability keeps deleting me from his consideration.

3 Spies, 64% chance of success each, and 83% chance for the final Spy because Civ 4 likes to penalize having multiple spies for some reason.

Spoiler :

Damn!!!
Last Spy better work....

Spoiler :

Machinery is mine!
And that's why Civ 4 is the best strategy game.
It is the player's job to tilt the odds so heavily in their favor that all outcomes lead to victory.

In 7 more turns when Justinian finishes Engineering, I can steal that then switch back to Buddhism.
Hopefully Rome does not tech Engineering and I can do some trading, but it is doubtful.

T153 - 860AD

Spoiler :

My Spy is surprisingly still alive after reaching 50% wait bonus.
With Closed Borders and being outspent on espionage by Genghis, I figure my Spy has a 7% chance of dying each turn, but I'm too lazy to look up the actual odds right now.

Time for the greatest spy cheat of all.
Destroy Walls!
Castle is still there, but it doesn't activate again until the Wall gets rebuilt which takes 1 turn for sure.
Far too late because once a city reaches 0% defenses, adding Walls and a Castle doesn't bring a city up from 0%.
....
..........
Success!

Spoiler :

Failure would have meant 4 or 5 turns bombarding down defenses and lots more units being built to defend the capital.
A huge boost for my war effort.

T154 - 880AD

Spoiler :

Took a suicide attack of 3 Catapults, but my army shrugged off the damage and healed 30% in between turns instead of 5% because of the Super Medic.
Such a nice use of the 1st Great General on normal speed.

Spoiler :

And then the inevitable.
Karakorum captured for 163!
I now have a source of Iron.

Spoiler :

Look at that, 3 settled Great Generals
My new Heroic Epic City.
With Forge, Buddhism, and Org. Religion, I can get a 50% bonus on buildings.
Will whip Lighthouse and Granary, and store the hammers until I get the Stone under Beshbalik so I can build Maoa Statues for +1 per water tile.
Farm the elephants, windmill the riverside hilltops for more food and gold, then grow the city big and fat.
2 pop whip a Barracks, hmm need to put 1 hammer into that and store it.
Production decay does not hit buildings nearly as fast as units.

Or, maybe I should try to grow my 2nd Great Person there?
The Great Wall, Scotland Yard, Forge, and Courthouse, I could easily get a Great Engineer or more likely Great Spy.

T157 - 940AD

Spoiler :

Stole Engineering
That is a 1690 tech for only 532

Spoiler :

Not sure why I got the -20% trade route bonus this time and not for Machinery?
All that means is that one of my cities picked Spy City to form a trade route.

Spoiler :

I must have been at peace with Justinian for 25 turns and built my "Sustained Peace" bonus for trade routes back up to 75% to get +2 in a trade route with Spy City instead of +1.
Each turn of peace with a civ builds up +3% sustained peace for trade routes until after 50 turns of peace the full +150% sustained peace bonus is restored.

If you want to learn how to get -20% trade route bonus reliably, Elitetroops made a guide here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/thre...me-get-this-right.636639/page-2#post-15229646

Island Cities in your empire tend to reduce the odds of -20% trade route espionage bonus unless you know what you are doing.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sgotm-25-home-slices.626796/page-108#post-15114849
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/sgotm-25-home-slices.626796/page-108#post-15114915

**Edit**
Looks like I made peace with Justinian on T110.
Not sure why the -20% trade route espionage bonus was missing on the Machinery steal on Turn 151?
**Edit 2**
I loaded the game back up to the start of Turn 151 and the -20% bonus was there.
Where did it go?

Spoiler :

**Edit 3**
Ok, I feel really dumb because I see it now.
You can not get the -20% trade route espionage bonus when your civ is in Anarchy!
I revolted to Taoism to get the -40% religious bonus and forgot I'm not in a golden age.
I should have revolted to Taoism 1 turn earlier and saved myself a valuable 81.

================================

Back to the game.
If my 86% chance Spy had failed, I would have sent in 3 more and waited 6 more turns and tried again.
Revolted to Buddhism to get back on Rome's Friendly side.
Instantly got out of "We Fear You are Becoming Too Advanced" and was able to trade again.

T158 - 960AD

Spoiler :

The war continues.
I need the Stone under Beshbalik, and I'm totally out of points to spend on Genghis, so I need to smash down the Castle the hard way.
-2% per Catapult, and -4% per Accuracy promoted Catapult!
Even with a horde of them, it will still take about 4 whole turns.
Beshbalik will also give me Gold and Horses, both vital resources for me.

Spoiler :

Continued in Part 8

 

[Kaitzilla]

Combat odds are sadly not accurate,
most of us have experience with that and need no further proof (even if there have been plenty doubters before ),
but you can actually proof that very easily.

When i set up combats with injured units fighting each other in a test game,
the stronger one might be shown as 90+% winning odds, gets beaten,
and combat log might tell you the weaker unit has won 3 rounds vs 1.
Ofc we all know that 1:3 does not reflect 10% or lower chances in real life,
more like ~25%.

So overall, those combat rounds are really messy.
If every round stands for a coin flip, you can actually lose 100% battles too (and have seen it happening).
While odds like 99.5% are nonsense imo, would need maaany more rounds to reach such fractals.

The odds do seem a bit off sometimes.
I've only really noticed it playing Quechuas.

I had a 6.36% chance to do no-damage to an Archer.
I did no damage to that Archer 3 times in a row!
That is like 0.02% chance of happening.
Spoiler :

Not sure a 1 in 5000 event proves anything though.



Each combat round is not a 50%/50% coin flip.
The stronger unit gets a weighted advantage to more often win each combat round. (65%/35%) or (80%/20%), etc.
They also tend to do more hp damage when they win each round unless they are fighting a unit more than twice their base

The combat mechanics are explained here by Arathorn:
A really nice way to finally understand what First Strike promotions do too.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/combat-explained.137615/

The basics

You don't even really need to understand this. You can get this by alt-mouseover or by right-click and dragging to the unit and checking the odds displayed in the lower left corner of the screen. This explains how those numbers are calculated.

[Comment by Kaitzilla - He means click on your unit (i.e. the human player's Axeman), hover the mouse pointer over an enemy unit, then press ALT to see modified strength]

Attacker's modified strength

This is calculated first. Apply any bonuses the attacker gets independent of the defender (generic strength promotions only in the default game). Multiply this total by the unit's hps/100. This gives the attacker's modified strength.

Example: A swordsman with Combat I, City Raider I, and only 73 hps is lining up to attack a city. His modified strength is 6 * 1.1 (from Combat I) * 73/100 (from hps) = 4.82 (well, 4.818 actually, but I don't know if Civ4 keeps more than 2 digits of accuracy).

Defender's modified strength

This one is more complicated. Determine the defender's bonuses from terrain, general strength bonuses, bonuses vs. the type of the attacking unit, fortification bonuses, etc. Sum those up. Now, subtract any bonuses the attacker might have if it attacks this unit. Those would include attacker bonuses against defender combat type, attacker bonuses against a city, attacker bonuses in the terrain type (?). If the overall value is positive, add that percentage to the defender to get its modified strength. If the overall value is negative, the defender's modified strength is found by taking the original defender's strength divided by (1-overall_value). [Note: That's the same as dividing by (1+abs(overall_value)) when overall_value is negative, which is how I think of it.]

Once this value is calculated, the defender's hps become an issue. This is again a straight multiplication by the number of hps remaining times the modified strength found above.

Example #1: (Both healthy) An archer (str:3) with City Raider I and Combat I promotions is attacking a warrior (str:2) on grassland. The attacker's modified strength is calculated by simply taking the combat I promotion and getting a value of 3.3 (3 + 3*.1). The defender has no strength bonuses and the grassland defense bonus is 0, so the defender has a modified strength of 2.

Example #2: (Both healthy) A knight (str:10) with Combat I and Cover (+25% vs. archers) promotions is attacking a longbow (str:6) in a forest. The attacker's modified strength is again simple, using the Combat I promotion of 10%. The knight's attack value is 11 (10 + .1*10). The longbow has an initial bonus of +50% for the forest. However, the knight's Cover bonus now affects the defending longbow, giving it a -25%, too. So, the overall bonus for the longbow is +25%. The defender's modified strength is 7.5 (6 + .25*6).

Example #3: A knight (str:10) with Combat I, Combat II, and City Raider I (+20% attacking a city) but only 73 hps is attacking an axeman (str:5) in a town with a 3% defensive bonus from culture. The attacker's modified strength is 8.76 (10 + .2*10)*76/100 from the two Combat promotions and the hps. The defender first calculates a +3% defensive strength from the city. Then the attacker's bonus is kicked in. This gives a -20% to the defender. Thus, the overall value is -17%. The defender's modified strength is 4.27 (5 / (1+.17) = 5 / 1.17)).

The actual combat

We now have the attacker and the defender's modified strengths. We will call these A and D going forward to help the discussion. If a bit of algebra scares you, just jump ahead to repercussions....

Round odds

The odds that the attacker will win each round is given by A/(A+D), so the odds the defender wins a round is D/(A+D).

So a 4 Spearman vs. a 40 Modern Armor only has 9.1% chance each round to inflict damage.
When it does inflict damage, it hurts the Modern Armor for 8 out of 100 hp.

The Modern Armor has a 90.9% chance each round to inflict damage.
When it does inflict damage, it hurts the Spearman for 47 out of 100hp.
I think that's right.

**Edit**
Ok, here is a quick test.

Spoiler :

I lost 10 Spearman in a row without inflicting any damage at all.
That is 30 straight rounds of combat lost.
I should have a 9.1% chance of inflicting damage each round!

Then Spearman #11 inflicted 2 rounds of damage against the Modern Armor before dying.
2 successes out of 35 rounds of combat is 5.7% odds of inflicting damage each round.
I need a lot more testing to even get close to being accurate on this (10,000 rounds of combat?), but I'm too lazy to do it.

Anyway, if the Modern Armor had 3 First Strikes, it would not have taken any damage at all being immune to damage the first 3 combat rounds.

====================================

All that good Arathorn info was for Civ Vanilla I think back in 2005.
Changes were made in Beyond the Sword here:

As far as I know, there is only 1 tiny change in the game compared to the information stored in the article from Arathorn.

The chance to hit is still calculated from the strength values that are visible when you ALT-mouseover an enemy unit. The damage per hit is now however calculated by averaging the maximum strength value of a unit and the damaged strength value. 1 tiny change (which can have significant consequences on combat) doesn't devalue the article. It just needs this one line addendum, that's all.

Extremely injured 0.1/?? units now inflict half the hp damage that they would at full health instead of microscopic damage.
Not sure how much difference that made since the minimum damage a unit can inflict was capped at 6hp on the low end and 60hp on the high end?
Probably to give 50% hp units more punching power than they were getting.

A thread popped up a while back talking about the Combat Odds being off.
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/civ-iv-combat-odds-are-rigged.431554/

The game's Random Number Generator was tested here:
https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/testing-civ4s-random-number-generator.339303/


If anyone wants to write a new Strategy Article for Beyond the Sword 3.19, that would be greatly appreciated!
I always suspect those combat odds myself deep down.

 

[Fippy]

Hmm okay,
i have also seen those 1:1000 chances (on several fights combined) too often thou to trust that rng anymore

 

[Kaitzilla]

Write up Part 8

Continued from part 7

Spoiler :

Turn 160 - 1000AD

A distant civ got Liberalism.
A bit slow for Deity AI.
Usually it is around 600AD I think?

Turn 161 - 1010AD

Spoiler :

Crushed Genghis' final large city.
Another Scotland Yard for my spy economy.

Spoiler :

Even better, rather than march north for another brutal fight to get Genghis' average hilltop city, or march 8 turns north to get the Buddhist Holy City, I got it for free in a Peace Deal!
Can't help but notice Rome has 115 population and another city I can't see.

Spoiler :

Could probably get another 500 tech due to Spy City making me a LandTarget, but Justinian refused to trade any techs with me, so all I could get away with is a 50 demand.

Spoiler :

The war with Genghis ended for now.

Now it is time for my giant stack to heal up and head north for Justinian's capital.
It has Colossus, Temple of Artemis, and some other stuff.

Revolted to Police State + Vassalage (1 turn of Anarchy)
Now I get +2xp for military units and +25% military !

T162 - 1020AD

Spoiler :

Met Darius of the Persian Empire.
He sailed across the whole ocean to meet me!
From what he is able to tech, it appeared he was the one to tech Liberalism.
I think he picked Astro as his free tech?
Traded him for Compass.

Spoiler :

T163 - 1030AD

Spoiler :

Rome completed Notre Dame.
+2 in all cities will really help him because AI struggle with happiness problems much more than health problems.

My Empire is spreading Buddhism everywhere for +25% building production, then 3-pop whipping Forges in cities with +6 or more , then 2-pop building Barracks and putting the major overflow into Moai Statues on the coast now that I have stone.
Every coastal city that 2-pop whips a Barracks or otherwise generate a large overflow will generate 75 fail when the Moai Statues complete in my Heroic Epic city, Genghis' old capital Karakorum.

Also, I can't believe Genghis is willing to trade with me still.
I thought for sure he'd say I was too advanced if nothing else.
Probably traded 10 techs that he could see. Guess he forgot 3 or 4 of them since my 1st trade.

Spoiler :

T164 - 1040AD

Spoiler :

Ugh, Rome completed Sistine's Chapel.
That means all his Buddhist Temples will produce +6 and Monasteries will produce +7
Worse, if they are more than 1000 years old it will be +12 and +14
Julius is really going to start pressing on my borders now.
Every time my Buddhist Shrine city revolts, I lose that +24 per turn for a few turns.

Spoiler :

In more good news, it appears that the Byzantines have a whole bunch of gold in their coffers.
I need to think about how to steal it.
1 costs 3 to steal, so to get any kind of good conversion rate I need roughly 3 -50% spy bonuses.

Spoiler :

T165 - 1050AD

Spoiler :

Rome completed Taj for a Golden Age!
He is taking off like a rocket.

Darius circumnavigated the world for +1 on his ships.

I've got vision on the capital of Byzantium.
A nice fat capital with +10 and 12 population.
Since the 4 pop spy city had 270 to steal, that means the whole empire of 4+12=16 population must have around 1000 for me to steal in the treasury.
Just need to get better spy bonuses and Justinian down to 1 city to steal the whole thing in one go.

Spoiler :

T170 - 1100AD

Spoiler :

Ok, Drama looks very appealing even though I want some of the other techs.
Genghis and Julius don't have it.

Spoiler :

T171 - 1110AD

Spoiler :

Traded Drama to Genghis for Literature.
Now I can build Heroic Epic and National Epic in Genghis' old cities.

T172 - 1120AD

Spoiler :

Traded Drama to Rome for 230 and his map.
But what is this!?

Julius refused the when I asked for 230 for Drama directly.
But when I set down Drama by itself and asked "what would make this deal work?", he immediately offered the 230 plus the map?

This is that famous bug I've been hearing about in action.

Spoiler :

T173 - 1130AD

Spoiler :

My main army is ready to rock Justinian's capital, but I want to gift him 3 cities to clear anger before the DOW.
And I just remembered that 2 of them have a lot of fail gold built up in Moai Statues.
Ok, the invasion gets delayed until T175!

Spoiler :

T175 - 1150AD

Spoiler :

Arg, another error.
The fail gold only generates in cities farther in the city order list after the wonder completes.
So Karakorum completed Moai, Beshbalik generated fail gold from failing to complete the wonder, Thessalonica did not much, and then my turn was over.
I need to wait until Turn 176 for ALL THE REST of my cities to give me fail gold for failing to complete Moai.
Delay the war 1 more turn.

Spoiler :

T176 - 1160AD

Spoiler :

Rome, the world's Super Power at this point, offered a Defense Pact since he has Military Tradition now, but I declined.
It would vanish anyway as soon as I DOW'd Justinian.
The long awaited fail gold waterfall will help turn around my teching fortunes allowing my stealing.

Spoiler :

Gave away 3 cities to clear major anger problems and DOW'd Justinian.
Took all 3 cities back right away with Horse Archers.

Spoiler :

Disaster!

Spoiler :

...
...........
Ok, so when I gave away Elephant City, not only did it clear my plot culture off my city tile, but it cleared away my plot culture in the surrounding 9 tiles.
My city will put (3+1+40 = +44) plot culture on my inner ring going forward, but both Genghis and especially Rome have a lot more plot culture than that on my inner ring already.
I need to get to +500 right away and start putting +70 plot culture on my inner ring as fast as possible.
I've cripped Elephant city for at least 20 turns by being too smart/cute with city gifting to clear anger.
Don't do it with contested border cities.

Continued in Part 9.

 

[Kaitzilla]

There are real limits to how far Catapults and Trebuchets can perform against Castle cities with +125% defenses.


Collateral Damage only goes up to 50% max of the defenders hp for Catapults and Trebuchets.
The player can get enemy units down to half hp if their Cata/Treb has the same base or more than the defender's base strength

To illustrate this, here are some nice looking Collateral Damage Tables:

Spoiler :

The most collateral damage Catapults can do to Longbows is get them down to 3.3/6 hp.
The most collateral damage Trebuchets can do to Longbows is get them down to 3.6/6hp.
Neither can hit Longbows with max 50% collateral damage, because Longbows have a higher base strength(6) than Catapults(5) or Trebuchets(4)
Cannons with a base strength of 12 and a max collateral damage of 60% hp can get Longbows down to 2.4/6 hp, far superior to the Trebuchet which hits its limit at 3.6/6hp.

That is why people so often spend 60 to upgrade their Trebuchets to Cannons.


Units with identical base such as Longbows, Swordsmen, and Crossbows (6) receive the same amount of collateral damage.
There is no need to include every unit in Civ 4 to construct good tables.


The Chinese unique unit Cho-ku-nu (6) has a strength of 3 when calculating Collateral Damage which makes for really pathetic collateral damage, but they can do it from the sea amphibiously off a transport which regular siege can't do.
They can also get Guerilla III for 50% withdrawal, so they can retreat and still inflict collateral damage.


All the Barrage promotion does is cause the Siege to do more collateral damage racing to the limit faster.
Compare the Catapult with Catapult having Barrage I and Barrage II promotions.

Spoiler :

City Raider is almost always better than Barrage due to survivability unless attacking an enemy stack outside a city.

Barrage Catapults are for when the enemy has a huge stack outside your city and you need to soften them up so your Horse Units have much better odds to successfully perform flanking attacks and destroy enemy Siege units.
A few Barrage II and Barrage III Catapults also shine when suicide attacking a city with lots of promoted units and +100% defenses.
The trebuchet attack will also be suicide just like the Catapults, but the Barrage Catapults will do more overall damage once you factor in their costs of 50 vs. 80



In case anyone was wondering, injured 0.1hp Catapults inflict FULL collateral damage.
It also does so against up to 6 other units in the stack with the defender.

Defense modifiers like +150% to defense do not affect Collateral Damage in any way.
Only the Base Strength of the attacking Siege Unit and the Base Strength of the defending unit matters when calculating Collateral Damage.


======================================


Now some people complain that they only hit 2 or 3 other units with collateral damage and not the full 6 with the Catapult or the full 7 with the Cannon.
That is because of 2 reasons.

First, if the defender has Siege Units like Catapults, Trebs, or Machine Guns, they are immune to collateral damage and will absolutely soak up Collateral Damage hits.
Put 8 defenders in a stack of 60 Catapults, and you will see only 1 Collateral Damage inflicted occasionally.

Spoiler :

5 Cannon attacks later, finally 1 Collateral Damage!

2nd, injured units below the Collateral Damage threshold will also soak up Collateral Damage hits and make them vanish.
But not as often as you'd imagine.
This seems right.

Spoiler :

This seems weird.
24 injured units and 8 healthy units.

Spoiler :

A cannon doing Collateral Damage to a stack of 32 with 24 critically injured units would be expected to hit the 7 healthy units with Collateral Damage 22.5% of the time.
Instead it occurs 78.6% of the time!


I thought this might be a mistake, so I made a new stack of 8 healthy Rifleman and 64 critically injured Rifleman.
Surely I might get collateral damage to 1 healthy Rifleman each Cannon attack.
Guess how many I got?
4 or 5!

Spoiler :

So a few very injured units will also soak up Collateral Damage hits, but only 1.
If there are a huge amount of injured units, they will soak up 2 Collateral Damage hits or maybe even 3, but not more.


Hopefully this clears up siege warfare confusion a bit for some people.

 

[Kaitzilla]

Write up Part 9

Continued from part 8

Spoiler :

T178 - 1180AD

Spoiler :

Justinian's capital is in major trouble.

Spoiler :

Still annoyed about Elephant City.
The inner ring of 9 tiles definitely lost all Plot Culture.
I have more % control in my 2nd ring right now than the 1st.

Spoiler :

T179 - 1190AD

Spoiler :

Stole Guilds from Justinian.
Now I can build Knights.

My City Culture bonus has withered to -13% as Justinian has filled the City Culture far past the 13 I put into the city before giving it away.
Still getting a decent ratio of to though.

Spoiler :

T180 - 1200AD

Spoiler :

Traded Guilds and 95 to Genghis for Civil Service.
Genghis continues to be a treasure mine even after 2 wars.

T182 - 1220AD

Spoiler :

Constantinople captured!
And it is a JACKPOT
4 Great Generals, 2 Great Prophets, and 1 Great Merchants are all settled in the city.
Lost 2 Trebuchets and 4 Catapults, but it was totally worth it.

Spoiler :

Representation is really starting to look appealing over Police State, but every gold I spend on Science instead of Espionage is a waste as long as I can still steal and trade techs.

My 3rd Great General was born.
Sent to Karakorum my Heroic Epic City as a 4th Great General.
Now I have 2 major cities with 4 settled Great Generals.

Justinian was willing to Vassal to me, but I still liked my Friendly relationship with Rome which instantly vanishes once I acquire a vassal unless Rome is Friendly to Justinian.
Plus, there is a tiny chance I could force the world's tech leader Persia into Friendly with a Buddhist flip, so even -1 diplo for having a vassal might be annoying.
I also want Spy City back.

Banking was a bit to much, so I signed Peace with Justinian for Music.

Spoiler :

T183 - 1230AD

Spoiler :

Rome got a Great Artist. Boo

Stole Banking from Justinian.
Now I can do Mercantilism for +1 specialist in each city.
The Courthouses I built will get some use soon running a Spy specialist.

Spoiler :

T184 - 1240AD

Spoiler :

Rome adopted Emancipation.
All the non-Roman cities in the whole world just got +1.
Nasty civic.

I'm starting to scout Rome to see what kind of odds I would get in an invasion.
Found the main stack near my border.
Always be aware of a Deity AI's main stack at all times if you want to have good success in a war against them.

Spoiler :

T185 - 1250AD

Spoiler :

Rome is spectacular in both land and military.
It will take quite a buildup to have a profitable war against Julius.
Even if I kill the main stack on Turn 0 of the war, he can rapidly rebuild a 2nd stack with his 11 cities and throw it somewhere before I can talk terms.

Spoiler :

Got Optics and Theology from Genghis for Banking and Music.
Time to send Caravels to contact the last 2 mystery civs in the world.

Spoiler :

Justinian and Genghis are down to Paper, so their continued usefulness to me is rapidly vanishing.
I can't draft their former cities until I get above 20% culture and Motherland anger is always annoying.

They will need to be terminated soon.

Damn Rome!
T186 - 1260AD

Spoiler :

Julius has screwed me.
Constantinople is facing border pressure from a city that exceeded 5000 and popped borders 4 times!

Spoiler :

Lower Estimate of Plot Culture per Turn.
Add Adrianople's + per turn to each of the +Plot Culture per turn to get a better estimate. (+15 per turn on every tile?)

That means my super city is only going to be able to work a few tiles.
Need to get Constantinople to 100 fast so I can start taking back tiles to the west and south of my city.

How can little Adrianople have more culture than giant Neapolis?
Julius must have used a Great Artist to culture bomb Adrianople.
I hate this game.

National Epic is done in Turfan.
Running 5 specialists to get a Golden Age on T190.

T188 - 1280AD

Spoiler :

Heroic Epic online in Karakorum.
This city will crank out City Raider III Seige units for the rest of the game.

Spoiler :

Time to take out the trash.
DOW'd Genghis for the final time.
Motherland anger and War weariness biting hard in the former Mongol cities, but it won't last long.

Spoiler :

T189 - 1290AD

Spoiler :

Wow, Genghis actually fought back a little.
A quick Chariot to Constantinople from Thessalonica and even if Genghis wins 2 out of 2 battles it won't be enough.

Spoiler :

T190 - 1300AD

Spoiler :

Thracian captured with 1 Trebuchet loss!
Genghis has been destroyed.

Spoiler :

Well played Mr. Khan. You fought very well.

Great Merchant born.
Started a Golden Age.
Revolted to Representation, Bureaucracy, Mecantilism, and Pacifism.
20 turns of great trade routes for Persia to me just ended

Running Great People farms in Turfan and Karakorum to birth Great People #3, #4, and #5 in the next 9 turns.

T191 - 1310AD

Spoiler :

Damn Rome!

Can a very valuable city revolt for 5 more turns the instant it comes out of a 9 turn revolt?
YES, it CAN!!!

Spoiler :

Need to start garrisoning my 3 troubled cities seriously.

T192 - 1320AD

Spoiler :

Oh ya, been waiting for this.

My solution to grab that vast 1000 treasury is to switch religions to get the -40% bonus and gift a 2nd Spy City to get the -50% City Culture bonus for 1 turn.

Gifted away Ning-Hsai to Justinian.
Revolted to Taoism.
Hopefully Rome won't plot war against me in the next 5 turns while I am at Pleased with him.

Note that I can only steal 4/7th's of Justinian's Treasury because he has 2 cities with 4 and 3 population.

Spoiler :

DOW'd Justinian.
Recaptured Spy City that I gift him a long time ago.
Stole 1366 from Byzantium.
Stole Paper!

Recaptured Ning-Hsai.
Byzantium has been destroyed.

Spoiler :

Seeing Justinian and Julius duke it out was great.
I just gobbled up some extra profits since Julius didn't vassal Justinian.

Rome now has my full, undivided attention dun dun dun

1686 can buy a lot of points
A shame Persia is on a different continent or I'd try to rob them with a gift city too.
If I crush Persia down from 5 cities to 3 they would take a gift city on my continent, but I'd need Astronomy to make that happen.

Being a parasite and psychotic bully is a lot of fun!
I haven't researched a tech for myself since 64 turns ago back on Turn 128.

 

[krikav]

@Kaitzilla
"Ok, I think I got the game won now.
Will post highlights of the rest of the game later instead of a blow-by-blow.
I'm starting to clutter up Lain's thread."

I really appreciate the effort you put into writing down all the fine details. A goldmine for learning.
I was starting to think about the cluttering as well, but also I would prefer for when I go back to it in the future, that your writeup is everything in one thread.

 

[Kaitzilla]

@Kaitzilla
"Ok, I think I got the game won now.
Will post highlights of the rest of the game later instead of a blow-by-blow.
I'm starting to clutter up Lain's thread."

I really appreciate the effort you put into writing down all the fine details. A goldmine for learning.
I was starting to think about the cluttering as well, but also I would prefer for when I go back to it in the future, that your writeup is everything in one thread.

The map is just too interesting.
I can't help myself.

Ok, I will make a separate thread for my write-up.
That is a really good idea.

Need to stop derailing this thread and making it hard for people to find hard maps.

 

[krikav]

The map is just too interesting.
I can't help myself.
Ok, I will make a separate thread for my write-up.
That is a really good idea.
Need to stop derailing this thread and making it hard for people to find hard maps.

It's also that I want to read all about it in one place, and be able to find it easily in the future. Your detailed comments are such a goldmine of knowledge.

 

[AcaMetis]

And...new map! The start for Mansa Musa:

Spoiler :

Map details:

Spoiler :

Pangaea, NHNE, all else default

Why it's worth playing? Give it...oh, say 5 turns. Yes, 5 turns should do it...

 

[Fish Man]

And...new map! The start for Mansa Musa:

Spoiler :

Map details:

Spoiler :

Pangaea, NHNE, all else default

Why it's worth playing? Give it...oh, say 5 turns. Yes, 5 turns should do it...

What the @@@@. There's no way this map was not cooked. You probably removed a couple of land tiles or something, because otherwise this is the most evil randomly rolled start I have EVER seen, no exceptions.

 

[Fippy]

Most annoying is no fishing lol, how do you start there..
worker + BW and then fishing?

 

[Fish Man]

Most annoying is no fishing lol, how do you start there..
worker + BW and then fishing?

Guess so...if fishing first, absolutely no production for boats. You'll be waiting until t40 before you even START on your first settler.

 

[AcaMetis]

What the @@@@. There's no way this map was not cooked. You probably removed a couple of land tiles or something, because otherwise this is the most evil randomly rolled start I have EVER seen, no exceptions.

I can assure you that I did not cook that map. The only map I "cooked" was the Sally map, because of the snafu with me having left it on Marathon speed on accident and having to re-add a bunch of techs to the Barbs in WB.

 

[Fish Man]

The map is just too interesting.
I can't help myself.

Ok, I will make a separate thread for my write-up.
That is a really good idea.

Need to stop derailing this thread and making it hard for people to find hard maps.

This is more derailing but I really enjoy your writeups. You should do more of them, they're fun to read. PLUS I get to see some very interesting new strategies - I've never quite dabbled with the idea of an espionage economy, and have no idea how it works, so to see an entirely different approach to this map than what Lain did or what I would've done (breakout with cannons, maybe elepault attack if I felt lucky, gotta bulb astro either way) is downright fascinating.

I can assure you that I did not cook that map. The only map I "cooked" was the Sally map, because of the snafu with me having left it on Marathon speed on accident and having to re-add a bunch of techs to the Barbs in WB.

OK, I believe you. The only thing that's possibly harder than this, then, would be the "lonely Zara" Ethiopia corner map.

 

[Kaitzilla]

This is more derailing but I really enjoy your writeups. You should do more of them, they're fun to read. PLUS I get to see some very interesting new strategies - I've never quite dabbled with the idea of an espionage economy, and have no idea how it works, so to see an entirely different approach to this map than what Lain did or what I would've done (breakout with cannons, maybe elepault attack if I felt lucky, gotta bulb astro either way) is downright fascinating.

Thanks!
I've gotten a bit sidetracked, but I'll finish my game write up in the future.
Right now I'm trying to write an Espionage Guide so that people will understand how it works once and for all.

Lain played the Willem map too?
I'll watch it after my game is over.

 

[AcaMetis]

@Lain Good luck with the Mansa map . As for what happened with the Churchill and Julius maps, if post-commentary doesn't work out perhaps adding subtitles will work better instead?

Incidentally, Fun Fact: I was trying to roll a Huayna Capac map that, leader aside, could be considered "hard"...and I got one that seemed promising! End result?

Spoiler :

Combat odds to kill the first Archer was ~22%. The one who came running to try and reinforce got killed in the open at like >95%. I mean, sure, I clearly got lucky there...but come on! I wasn't even trying!

So...as a chance of pace, how about an Unrestricted Leaders game? You know, just curious .