Random "advanced" questions

[Gumbolt]

This is the problem with Alex. If he starts winning wars he can spam a lot of units! I remember an old game on immortal where he had close to 60+ cuirs.

In this game he already has at least 10 phants plus another stack in that city. His culture soon will get really annoying. Of course sometimes you can use AI war tactics to your advantage. Ai rarely attack until culture is at 0%. Might be safer to let Russians and Greeks fight while you grab land. Pends what stacks JoaII has? Have you scouted him out? Alex might suicide his stack on JaoII? That or crush it.

Alexander can attack at pleased! Right now phants and pults vs phants won't be great. You do need to try and get Alex to friendly so he won't back stab you. Shared wars help here. Gifting techs and resources will too. Along with shared religion. If you bribe him on Russia you may have to refuse a request to join. Albeit it would keep him busy. You will take a hit diplomacy wise for declaring on a friend. One of the plus sides for attacking Russia who has no religion.

 

[elitetroops]

Nice game you have going there, Sampsa! Alex looks tough, but at least he is one of the easiest AIs to bribe, should there ever be a risk that he could start plotting at you.

@elitetroops You're so HoF-minded, that's pure madness... And yet very interesting.

I'd never bother with reading demos and scoreboard in a HoF game. Such madness is exclusively SGOTM only. When the game progresses only a few turns/week, there's too much spare time to analyze all the available data.

I also find immortal the most fun level to play. Sure, by now it feels like a playground where I can do just about anything and get away with it, but that's also the kind of game I prefer. I like experimenting and trying out funky stuff. I've never really viewed the AI as competitors. I don't compete against AI but against myself (or against other players in HoF/SGOTM). The AI are merely obstacles or resources to be exploited on the way to my final goal. This way it doesn't bother me at all that the AI doesn't stand a chance to win and the game can be fun to play even at settler level.

 

[sampsa]

4) At the start of the game, how are starting spots determined? By this I mean mostly do some civs start near the equator more often than others? I seem to have very good land often with Justinian, and crap land with say Ragnar.

---

Save attached from the game. Pedro and others, what tech path and strategy would you have chosen? Any other obvious mistakes in the save? Just realized that the following image doesn't necessarily mean Joao and Alex have met someone else

Spoiler :

Because I killed Hammurabi and met HRE simultaneously. So those missing points could have been on Ham and now no longer visible.

I think I am committed to engineering bulb now, let's see how it goes.

 

[Pedro78]

I see two options here -

Spoiler :

• Bulb Engi, attack Joao and bribe Alex on him with you. It's the most rewarding strategy if Joao doesn't get Engi himself too early. Also have to make sure he doesn't cap to Alex. Not too risky if you do it right, but I don't like it very much. Taking out Joao with 1-movement units is gonna be pretty slow and will slow down your tech pace by a lot.
• Grow your cities, GA, bulb Philo, Paper + 2*Edu, get GMs, Lib MT, roll over your continent (horses from Joao, having copper makes trading for horses easier). I like this much better because it's extremely easy and you have great land (Babylon can pump out tons of GPP). Being spiritual does also make the whole thing more fluid. Only need to DoW Charly and bribe Alex on him then the game is won.

I don't see any "obvious mistake", but I would have played differently. Alex is fun to toy around with when you have a tech lead... Would have left him stomp Hammy and bribed him off before capitulation if possibe. Gone Litt, built GLib, bulbed Philo etc you know the rest. With enough tech I could later have bribed Alex on Joao/Stalin without having to DoW them myself. It's the "boring" approach but definitely the safest. Plus with that kind of start/surrounding land you can get some damn early Cuirs

Edit: Can you detail your thinking about the espionnage screen? I would have come to the conclusion that Alex and Joao have met someone else (as the latter obvsl isn't in anarchy right now)
I don't think starting points vary depending on the civ. I've started close to the equator with Ragnar quite often. Can't tell for sure though

 

[sampsa]

About espionage, should have added another screenshot of the -screen just before knocking Hammy out and meeting Charles:

Spoiler :

Joao was in anarchy 1T before screenshots, as he switched to Judaism. Haven't checked the autosaves after that, but at least in the current save I can see how everyone's minimum 4 -points are distributed. And I think it would be very likely that they'd put points on the last civ if they had met him/her, as he/she is the hindu founder so likely not liked by anyone. My money is on Gandhi btw. Starts with mining, could found Hindu, could get a fast shrine without wonders. Arabia/Egypt don't start with mining, so they are ruled out.

Pretty sure you are spot on on the grand strategy. I should just learn to take the standard route more often and forget the medieval distractions. Just too used to the fact that phants+trebs are unstoppable (below deity).

 

[Gumbolt]

Never a wrong strategy if the objective is to have fun. Of course MT vs phants will be much quicker. Minute Ai hit castles is end of your attack. So risks to phants if you do it late. Of course with Greek help it could be quicker?

Wow Greeks have a lot of units here. If they turn on you you're in real trouble.

In terms of JoaII being a vassel. I think he need 8 bordering tiles for this with JoaII.

To get Alex to happy you could use +5 from shared war. No bonus from shared resources yet. Maybe once Hammy land becomes yours?

 

[Pedro78]

I think he need 8 bordering tiles for this with JoaII.

Joao doesn't have to be a landtarget to Alex to capitulate to him, if that's what you meant. Being a valid landtarget just makes capitulation easier (smaller power ratio required).

@sampsa I wouldn't call the medieval wars a "distraction". Elepults are awesome if you attack pre-longbows. Trebs are awesome if you attack pre-Engi. Elepult is slowed down a lot when the AI gets longbows/maces but still works if you have the numbers. Same with trebs vs castles. It's doable but it's a slog. It's just that in this case things will be much smoother with Cuirs.

 

[Gumbolt]

My understanding was you needed at least 8 adjacent land tiles to captulate an AI. Maybe power alone is enough?

 

[Pedro78]

Kinda lazy to explain, capitulation mechanics are quite complex. Just read through these two threads and everything will become crystal-clear

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/trying-to-understand-the-mechanics-of-capitulation.364486/
(Read Kossin's posts)

https://forums.civfanatics.com/threads/memhed-ii-the-indestructable-ai.295693/
(Read DanF5771's posts)

 

[Gumbolt]

It states sharing 8 land tiles helps. Maybe it's not 100% needed. That seems to be your point? The issue might be the Ai would be more likely to vassel to a neighbour that borders with them. It certainly helps if you want an Ai to freely offer to be your vassel.

I have played about with vassel stuff over mt time. Probably read both of those 2 threads already.

 

[Pedro78]

It states sharing 8 land tiles helps. Maybe it's not 100% needed. That seems to be your point? The issue might be the Ai would be more likely to vassel to a neighbour that borders with them. It certainly helps if you want an Ai to freely offer to be your vassel.

Yup that's what I meant.

It's not exactly about sharing 8 land tiles. What matters is being a valid land target, which is having 8 adjacent border tiles - important to note that diagonals don't count - and having at least 1 city on their main landmass.

 

[Imploding]

Yeah nice! @sampsa I learned it from Pedro78's "52 shades of Sid - a story of deities"
I am in no way an expert on it.. but i have learned that sometimes it can be of real value.. especially spotting coastal capitals when you might want to go for for the GLH. and spotting Mansa Musa

Would also add a trick about spotting wonder production.. by looking at the Espionage screen and in every city you can find out where they are producing wonders.. what wonders.. how fast (from turn til turn).

Using this little formula:
Cost of sabotage production/Cost of support city revolt * 108 = exact value of how many hammers they have into something.
note.. you have to see the city on the map.. to be able to see it in the EP screen.. so it is really important to scout out you neighbors to be able to pull this trick of.

Interesting about the capitulation even tho I'm unsure if I understand the mechanic any better.

I had a really strange non capitulation game i actually recorded if anyone would care to look at it:

Deity 09 Monty from episode 10 - 15 I was warring with Lincoln and he simply did not give in.
Lincon went from:

t184: 2321 in score with 14 cities (he was the world leader at the beginning of the war)
t226: 1455 in score with 3 cities

... and then he finally did cap. But I still don't understand why it took that long.. 11 cities!

and then the important question.. Is there anything i could have done different to get the Lincoln cap sooner?

 

[Pedro78]

Took a quick look (didn't watch the whole series):

• Lincoln was not a valid landtarget to you (you didn't have the 8 bordering tiles)
• You were Lincoln's worst ennemy

Both these things raises the power ratio needed to cap Lincoln. He was quite a bit more advanced in tech than you so your power ratio wasn't all that great. I think that's why he refused to cap.

 

[elitetroops]

I had a really strange non capitulation game i actually recorded if anyone would care to look at it:

Deity 09 Monty from episode 10 - 15 I was warring with Lincoln and he simply did not give in.
Lincon went from:

t184: 2321 in score with 14 cities (he was the world leader at the beginning of the war)
t226: 1455 in score with 3 cities

... and then he finally did cap. But I still don't understand why it took that long.. 11 cities!

and then the important question.. Is there anything i could have done different to get the Lincoln cap sooner?

There are a few conditions that must be met for an AI to capitulate:

-You must have twice their land OR population
-You must have about 1.5x their power rating if they are land target, 3x if they are not (this depends a bit on the AI leader, I believe)
-They must be below average power rating of all living civs
-You must have enough war success on them

In case of peace vassaling, forget the war success and insert diplo requiremens that depend on the AI. Also, at least for peace vassaling it is important that you are not at war, or they will likely be afraid of your enemies.

I had a look at part 14 of your video series, about 8:45 in when you take Chicago. It looks like the first 3 conditions above are easily satisfied, which leaves lack of war success as the likely reason he won't capitulate. War success is gained from winning battles:

• 4 pts for winning offensive battle
• 3 pts for winning defensive battle
• 10 pts for taking city
• 1 pt for collateral kills (for example grabbing a worker in addition to the first unit you killed, or sinking ships when taking a city)

The goal is to earn 40 more on your opponent than he earns on you. In the battle of Chicago, you kill 5 units, grab one worker as collateral and grab one city. That's 5*4 + 1 + 10 = 31 for you. But you also lose 12 units, that's 12*3 = 36 for him. In other words, taking Chicago put you further away from being able to cap him than you were before.

Note also that war success resets at a cease fire. You have to reach +40 since the last declaration of war.

If you have a save from the later stages of that war, you can hover over the red capitulation text in the diplo screen to see the reason he gives you. If he says "surely you must be joking", it is because you don't have enough war success and he thinks he is winning the war. If he says something else, like "we are doing fine on our own", then his power rating is too high, or he has more than half of you land and pop.

If it is only an issue of war success, there are some dirty tricks you can use to instantly cap him. For example take a cease fire, gift him any 4 cities, then redeclare and immediately take them back. That gives you the 40 war success required to cap him. The next turn, when he is willing to talk, he will immediately cap. This trick can also be used in the later stages of domination/conquest games to capitulate smaller AI without sending any units at all into their lands.

Edit, correction about gifting cities: Do not gift recently captured cities, or they will immediately regain their cultural borders. City gifting trick works best if you have recently captured cities from another AI that you can gift. Or you can gift him wounded units or workers or whatever, which you can immediately kill off. Capturing a single worker also counts as winning a battle, if there are no other units in the tile.

 

[Imploding]

Thank you for a good explanation! I did not know about the 40 points of war succession at the time of the video.. I just assumed that I had the condition checked because of the ridiculous number of cities I had taken.
But you know what they say.. when you assume.. you make a 'ass' out of 'u' and 'me'.

The goal is to earn 40 more on your opponent than he earns on you. I'm really going to start keeping a small tab on this difference! Definitely going to be more careful when attacking cities.
Guess war succession is something that can be heavily improved with better cata/treb usage.. and attacking with more advanced units. Really liked the explanations about the different comments they give!

-You must have about 1.5x their power rating if they are land target, 3x if they are not (this depends a bit on the AI leader, I believe)

Yeah.. I can confirm this one.. this is one of the thing i have checked out on leaders. When I have been struggling with "non-capitulitus".. if I notice they are hard to cap.. the value goes from 0.8 - 1.5 of your score. You can esily find it if you just google the said leader + civ 4.

The land/none land target is new information for me. maybe its just double of their "base value".. so it goes from 1.6 - 3.0 if they are on a different landmass?

But I guess the war succession thing is the main reason why I have failed to cap leaders in the past..
Will take this new understanding to heart! This kind of make me want to start up a new game.. and maximize for the war succession as quick as possible.