Random UHV musings

[deanej]

Babylon is easy on viceroy if you beeline writing and micro-manage your tiles (build a cottage first thing then force the city to work it... you'll grow slower, but you'll beat China to writing!).

 

[Ataxerxes]

I've been away for a bit.

On Viceroy Spain isn't too bad if you remember one thing - If there is no France or Dutch there are no colonies! After the three problems are dead you can take one quick look for cities to raze and kill the Aztecs and Incas (don't misclick and vassalize one or the UHV is gone).

Khmer isn't too hard but it is very luck dependent. The culture is easy if you understand a GA farm in Jakarta. However the 10 population will go bye-bye if you get the plague at the wrong time with all that jungle.

China can be hard for a new player - you have to chop/whip like crazy. And there are actually about 6 vc's - get 8 decent cities, found two religions, spread both religions to all 8 cities and don't settle in Mongolian lands.

Maya is actually easy. You just have to remember to get Shock Longbows ASAP before you settle past New Orleans. Go North, not South. Some of the city sites in North America are incredibly good. The Aztecs die after 10 turns - don't even vassalize. Two things I find help me with Maya is (1) find the Europeans before they find you - get that Plague out of the way and (2) don't cut the jungle on the three squares NE of your starting location - Conquerors will often spawn there and just sit.

 

[trexeric]

Maya? Very easy in my opinion. I was able to research Optics (on Viceroy, of course) before the Europeans, so I discovered them before they discovered me.

 

[Iapetus303]

You might have failed to notice, but each civ has one UHV goal that is outside their actual historical achievements.

I haven't "failed to notice" that.

But most of non-historical UHV conditions are things that were potentially plausible for the civ concerned to achieve (or at least to want to achieve), and which wouldn't have an absolutely huge effect on the rest of the world. Like the "resist invasion better than you did in real life" or "Hold on to a slightly larger empire for longer than you really did" or "win the race to the moon / round the world".

But if Judaism, Christianity and Islam were founded in India, then not only would the subsequent history of Europe, North Africa and Asia be completely different, it would have to have been vastly different for this to happen in the first place (so much so that it would almost certainly have been impossible).

 

[Wessel V1]

If Rome survived past 1000AD I think that would also have a pretty big impact on the world, or if the Incas managed to defend SA from Europeans, so I guess that it's not that simple.

 

[Ataxerxes]

If Rome survived past 1000AD I think that would also have a pretty big impact on the world, or if the Incas managed to defend SA from Europeans, so I guess that it's not that simple.

A lot of the UHV's would have an impact. Like if Germany actually accomplishes a UHV.

Another interesting thing is several of the UHV's are mutually exclusive. Mongolia and China can't both win a UHV. And I think three Civs have to circumnavigate first.

I haven't had much luck with Carthage yet. Babylon hires mercenaries and it becomes a slugfest.

I usually try to do most civs two ways - UHV and domination. It's fun to mess up with world with China conquering most of Asia.

 

[deanej]

India has historically been a melting pot of religions. The condition makes sense on those grounds. Often UHVs will be slightly off because being more historically accurate would not be possible with the game mechanics. "Have a large religious diversity in your cities" would not be a feasible victory condition.

I haven't "failed to notice" that.

But most of non-historical UHV conditions are things that were potentially plausible for the civ concerned to achieve (or at least to want to achieve), and which wouldn't have an absolutely huge effect on the rest of the world. Like the "resist invasion better than you did in real life" or "Hold on to a slightly larger empire for longer than you really did" or "win the race to the moon / round the world".

But if Judaism, Christianity and Islam were founded in India, then not only would the subsequent history of Europe, North Africa and Asia be completely different, it would have to have been vastly different for this to happen in the first place (so much so that it would almost certainly have been impossible).

You want to live in a world where Germany won its UHV?

 

[Iapetus303]

A lot of the UHV's would have an impact. Like if Germany actually accomplishes a UHV.

Another interesting thing is several of the UHV's are mutually exclusive. Mongolia and China can't both win a UHV. And I think three Civs have to circumnavigate first.

True, although Germany winning WWII, China resisting the Mongols, Russia getting the first man on the moon (rather than just first man in space and first probe on the moon), Aztecs defeating the Conquistadores, or (as a suggested alternative UHV) India controlling all the Subcontinent in 1948 are all things that seem to me to be on the edge of historical plausibility.

Whereas the development of the Abrahamic religions was so much dependent on and a driver of Near/Middle-Eastern culture that I don't see how it could happen thousands of miles away in a culture with completely different religious traditions. (That said, Civ4 allows Judaism/Christianity/Islam, and Hinduism/Buddhism to develop in isolation on separate continents, which is even worse).

And without them developing in their proper places, there would probably be no Arab conquest of the Middle East and North Africa, no Crusades, and the entire character of European imperialism would have been different.

Although this does give me an interesting idea for a game strategy: start as India, achieve all the religious UHV conditions, and then switch to Arabia or a European civ, and see what you can do from there, and how history develops.

You want to live in a world where Germany won its UHV?

No, but it might not be so bad with Bismark still in charge.

 

[Wessel V1]

Why would Russia getting the first man on the moon be THAT implausible? Same story for India, if WWII started a decade earlier it might have been perfectly possible. Both are not UHV conditions anyway.

 

[Iapetus303]

I said they were plausible.

And Russia does have to build the Apollo Project, which I assumed implies they be the first to get a man on the moon. And I know India doesn't have "Control the Subcontinent" as a UHV condition - that's why I described it as "a suggested alternative UHV".

 

[Wessel V1]

Sorry I misunderstood your post, I thought you meant that those are nearly unbelievable whereas the others are in some way.

 

[The Oz-Man]

Man, in what universe does the Buddhism spread goal for the Khmer basically auto-complete? I'm playing their game now and actually teching to Flight because nobody wants to be Buddhist, nobody will talk to me if I convert out of Free Religion, and I'm tired of shipping bald orange guys all over the world on boats. I got to the Mali, Aztecs, and Incas before they got religion, but sailing around Africa to get to the big cities in Europe is not a good time.

I'm playing from 600 AD as Khmer from the start, which might be the problem--I don't think Silverbow was since he was building the AP, which should've already been in Rome when the game began. It's probably a whole lot easier starting the world from scratch than trying to find leverage in places where Islam and Christianity are already all over.

 

[Silverbow]

I was playing 3000 BC starts with autoplay for all those games.

 

[The Oz-Man]

Ah. I should specify that I don't think starting from 600 AD will be hard; it's just extremely inconvenient and kind of boring, particularly the fact that you can only build three missionaries at a time. RFC AIs seem much less inclined to open borders, and people like Isabella and Saladin are going to run Theocracy basically forever. Teching to Flight is the best option I can think of other than spreading Buddhism through conquest, and I'm disinclined to do that.

Others I've tried:

Turkey: Super-duper easy. Collapsing is an issue if you overexpand like I did, but vassals are no problem--Mansa and Joao will peacevassal without much prodding, and any collapsed civ that re-emerges usually comes in ready to peacevassal (I got Egypt and Persia this way).
Rome: The timetable is very tight, but it's doable. The fifteen buildings are the biggest challenge. Carthage can be killed with starting Praetorians.
France: Easy-easy, but plague plus Dog Soldiers equals not a good time in the New World. I did have to war with Germany to secure some marble for Notre Dame, but I don't know if it was necessary.
America: Probably my favorite, but I cheated; I started as Turkey and spent that time conquering Europe. By the time America emerged, the last European civ had collapsed. Then Turkey collapsed. Spain came back and put a colony in Cuba, but by that point I had Infantry. Warring for oil late in the game was a pain in the neck, though; Saladin had enough rifles, cavalry, and muskets to make life difficult for my tanks and infantry and got an edge through sheer numbers.
Carthage: I failed this one! I was trying to do too many things at once. I wanted the Great Wall for barbs (didn't realize it wouldn't stop the Impis), I wanted my five cities to be in Africa to benefit from the Great Wall (again, stupid), and I also--early on--wanted to try to take Rome with elephants like the historical Hannibal did (which led to an out-of-place city around Casablanca that didn't count toward the Mediterranean goal). I'm going to try again and I'll probably win; I took Egypt with starting Numidian Cavs.
Russia: By far the easiest. I started building wealth and research and had Apollo out in the 1700's. The late game was getting boring, so I spent much of the time pounding the jesus out of the other Asian superpowers (Mongolia and Turkey) out of boredom. Ended up with Future Tech 7, which I think is flying cars.
Khmer: I failed the city size goal once because I wanted to get Hanoi up and running at the same time that the Chinese put a city that took a lot of its food. So I warred China a bit. And kept one of their cities. The second time I went to the Philippines and had a much easier time. Now it's just a matter of spreading the religion.

But thanks for putting this up; I use it a lot.

 

[deanej]

RFC AIs seem much less inclined to open borders

They are. Rhye flipped the map and open border diplo levels.

 

[MilesBeyond]

Bump!

Just finished my first game of RFC. Greece on Monarch. Absolute cakewalk. Start with wonderspam, spam Phalanxes (I didn't trust Rome) while I wait for wonders to start popping hordes of GPs, bulb key techs, beeline Optics. Doing Greece as an OCC would probably make it more challenging. I got DOWed by Rome and Arabia but nothing ever came of either conflict (i.e. not one battle except for an Arabic Trireme that wandered up near Athens).

Puny score as a result of only having four cities, but a boatload of fun.

This thread has been great for getting ideas as to who I should play next. France looks fun. They hardly seem more difficult than Greece, but I do love accumulating culture...

I might try Khmer after that. They seem pretty unique.

I kind of want to stay away from later game ones. Crap like "Finish the tech tree!" and "Amass 16000 units!" just seems boring.