RB29a - Cultural Extermination

[carpejugulum]

Lurker Question:

On the Americans settling Boston:

Does the AI have any accounting for cultural boundaries when selecting a city site?

Related, does the AI behave similar to the go-to-war logic where it picks the site beforehand and settles it unless impossible. Or is there a sanity check somewhere that the AI could decide that settling this location is no longer a good choice?

 

[Sullla]

Those look like pretty good turns, LK. I really think we should swap from Writing to Agriculture research though; St. Petersburg needs farms desperately - otherwise it can't get past size 3! I also think we should start working the cottage tile at Moscow; it will drop the worker ETA from 4 to 5 turns, but if we don't work the cottages we build, what's the point in having them at all?

The one major was not swapping St. Pete's from a barracks to a granary when Pottery tech came in. We really, really need a granary at that city because it has so little food. A barracks there will also be great, but it can wait for some time.

Moscow probably needs to go onto the Oracle next after it finishes this worker if we want to have a realistic chance of grabbing it. (Obviously we'll be taking Code of Laws with the free tech for another religion!) We just need to be careful that the current forest chop at Moscow sends those shields into the Oracle and not the worker under production currently. (This will also be a good time to mine those plains hill tiles at Moscow, for some very nice 0/4/0 production!)

America has a death wish

Good call on sending the settler east; the placement of Boston dictates that we head to that spot. Plus we'll be able to attack the American second city (the unseen New York) and Japan's fledgling new colony of Edo.

If the team agrees, I can play next on Friday, and darkwatcher can then play on Sunday.

That sounds like a plan.

Sullla
darkwatcher <<< on deck
LKendter
dathon78 <<< UP NOW

Does the AI have any accounting for cultural boundaries when selecting a city site?

To the best of my knowledge, no. The AI sometimes settles in some very bad locations. But in all honesty, trying to program something like that (which isn't going to come up very often) would probably be more trouble than it's worth.

 

[Sullla]

I have yet to see anyone else on this team offer even the slightest feedback on the turns played so far. The LAST thing this game is supposed to be is "Sulla telling the other players what to do" - I'm trying to throw out ideas and see what others think here! Disagreements/alternate opinions are a good thing. So far, this is among the least-chatty SG teams I've ever had.

Now maybe that's because dathon and darkwatcher have been having various computer issues - I don't know. But I hope we can do more in terms of discussion as time passes. I feel like I'm being way too pushy here since no one is countering my suggestions!

 

[Mutineer]

lurker's comment:
Just some lurker speculations
You variant based on difficult balance between cultural expansion and military activities.
1). On one side, befor all land is settled, you want to stick your cultural influence on as mach territory as possible. That is because you will not luckily to be able to pull off secondary cultural pressure. Cities you capture by culture will probably not able to capture any other cities for you, except if helped by your old culture. So, you want to compete for as mach land culturally as soon as possible. So, initially you want to spread your cities as wide as posible.The only way for you to expand after all land is settle is to incite wars and try to stick your cities in hole which temporary appear when one side lost a city. For that purpose you want to make other civ hostile to each other as mach as possible.
2). On other hand the more cultural pressure you put, the more probability this civ will declare on you and less if will like you. If I understand how code work correctly every time AI want to move a unit on your land it made check on war declaration. So, you want to keep your cities defendable and very mach so, if you lost city by capture you never can get it back.
3). In addition longer distance + more cities = more upkeep.
4). It is impossible to get out to many cities to fast, you will be broke. So, you need to consider military ways to reduce AI expansion. Hunting settlers with Chariots is one of options. Blocking civs with culture is an other. You can still steal worker in your rules, as AI sometimes does build roads outside there cultural borders. So, I would consider connecting horses as soon as possible.

 

[LKendter]

I have yet to see anyone else on this team offer even the slightest feedback on the turns played so far. The LAST thing this game is supposed to be is "Sulla telling the other players what to do" - I'm trying to throw out ideas and see what others think here! Disagreements/alternate opinions are a good thing. So far, this is among the least-chatty SG teams I've ever had.

Well it is tough to offer suggestions when it is clear who the strongest player of the team is. I have been thinking I am getting a good handle on the game, but you have already found several subtle mistakes of mine.


Right now I only have ONE big concern - military. That is why I am mining the copper by St. Petersburg. That is the same reason I didn't think about the granary. All the growth in the world is meaningless if you die. I already see St. Petersburg as our primary military pump. We ARE going to be pissing AIs off, and we had better have the military to survive it. I would like to agree on nothing but axes and spears from St. Pete for the next few rounds.

 

[dathon78]

Well, primarily, for me it's been time issues, not computer issues I haven't had the chance to download any of the saves and look at them. I should have some commentary tonight when I play my turn.

The other reason is I am trying to be a little reserved as the double newbie. First Civ SG, and first time trying this kind of cultural variant. I'm definitely in new territory for me, and while I don't intend to be an automoton (did I spell that right?), I'm also trying to learn as much as I can, and usually happens best for me the less my jaw is flapping

Mostly though, it's been time issues. Orion I can look at in little bits during the day at work, and I think I've got a pretty good handle on that game. There has been zero time in the evenings this week for me to even think about CIV. Next week should be better though

dathon

 

[dawn]

Lurker comment:

Faithfully following this and the other three iterations. You answered the only realy question I had - culture strength on the axis or the diagonal. I guess this game means you look to emphasize city placement based on that goal over land value. Lesson learned and looking forward to trying it out in my own game.

Back to the regularly scheduled SG......

 

[Sullla]

You variant based on difficult balance between cultural expansion and military activities.
1). On one side, befor all land is settled, you want to stick your cultural influence on as mach territory as possible. That is because you will not luckily to be able to pull off secondary cultural pressure. Cities you capture by culture will probably not able to capture any other cities for you, except if helped by your old culture.

You may be surprised about this. We're still incredibly early in both this game and the RB29 group in general, but I'm going keep this in mind. You may find me quoting the "cities you capture by culture will probably not able to capture any other cities" line down the road.

Let me put this another way: if I didn't think these cities captures were possible, we'd have different variant rules! I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens.

The other points are absolutely very true. However:

4). It is impossible to get out to many cities to fast, you will be broke. So, you need to consider military ways to reduce AI expansion. Hunting settlers with Chariots is one of options. Blocking civs with culture is an other. You can still steal worker in your rules, as AI sometimes does build roads outside there cultural borders.

If you think that our plan is to ruthlessly hunt down exposed workers and archer/settler pairs... well, you clearly missed the overall spirit of this variant!

Right now I only have ONE big concern - military. That is why I am mining the copper by St. Petersburg.

I'm worried about our military status as well; our red dot city will be pretty exposed in the near future. With that said, however, we can't build any axes in St. Pete until we connect the copper there, and a granary helps the city enormously more than a barracks does. It's not a huge deal though, so don't worry about it. At this point, we may just want to finish the barracks (halfway done now), hold the city at size 3 (once it grows there), and work the lake + copper + ivory tiles while cranking axes for a dozen or so turns. Thoughts on that idea?

The other reason is I am trying to be a little reserved as the double newbie. First Civ SG, and first time trying this kind of cultural variant. I'm definitely in new territory for me, and while I don't intend to be an automoton (did I spell that right?), I'm also trying to learn as much as I can, and usually happens best for me the less my jaw is flapping

Yes, well that's certainly a very real concern. I originally intended to try this variant with a highly experienced group before we ballooned off into 4 separate teams. This probably is not the best game to be trying for your first Civ4 SG!

On the other hand, the best way to learn is by asking questions, ESPECIALLY if they're silly ones. I know from our MOO succession game that there will be plenty of back-and-forth here when time ceases to be an issue.

You answered the only realy question I had - culture strength on the axis or the diagonal. I guess this game means you look to emphasize city placement based on that goal over land value. Lesson learned and looking forward to trying it out in my own game.

Was it THAT obvious? My past experience suggests that city positioning is the critical determining factor in all city flips. The difference between 3 tiles of distance spacing and 4 tiles is absolutely enormous. And as far as the way in which a culture push functions, I discussed the whole thing in detail in my Passive-Aggressive Hatty report (there's a link to it on the first page). I'll just post one picture to explain that further:



Accompanying text from report: Starting in the northwest, Turfan has been completely engulfed by Egyptian culture and I'm simply waiting for the first revolt at this point. Byblos and Kahun are both pressuring Karakorum, and the first-ring tiles for the Mongolian capital are about to start falling to my control. In the south, Athribis has just been founded and is beginning the process of going after Rome. I was pleased to see that my culture managed to connect with Giza in the southeast, which had been isolated for ages and ages upon end. To give you an idea of where I'm planning to go next, I've added the yellow dots and arrows. Once Antium falls (and it's clearly a matter of time), I will raze and replace on the yellow dot. That new city and Giza will be able to triangulate on Cumae; once Cumae falls, another city will be founded on the southern dot, and I'll repeat the process with Rome. The yellow arrows represent the direction of my cultural push, first south and then west. See, culture extends very far in the cardinal directions, but very weakly on the diagonals. Therefore, the best way to advance into an AI core is along straight lines as you see here. Remember, the diagonals are not your friends!

I hope that makes sense to everyone.

 

[dathon78]

Alright, Sullla wanted some opinions, so I'll give some opinions. I'm always good for some hot air

I like the idea of leaving St. Pete on axeman duty for a little while. That frees up our other cities to be producing something other than military, and allows us to bypass agriculture for the moment. That should allow us to get Alphabet next, and I remember that early tech trading was a crucial component of Sullla's culture crush with Hatty. I also agree that we should be working the cottage at Moscow. Our finances are going to tank hard as it is. That sets the worker back to 5 turns, and the forest chop is due in 6. Ahhh, perfect!

I briefly considered splitting red dot into two cities:


The southern city could then place straight-on three-space culture on both Edo and the eastern American city, while the northern could still hit Boston, and put pressure on the American capital. Ultimately, though, I was worried that either American culture or another settler might kill the northern option, plus we probably wouldn't be able to get to that spot without giving up pressure in the west, so I went with red dot. I'm a little worried about flipping Edo, but I guess we'll deal.

Here's our situation at the end of my turns:


(I apologize for the poor screen shots, I couldn't get Civ 4's to work)
Novgorod is founded, and already butting up against New York and Boston. However, this dropped our science rate to 70%. The forest chop went to the Oracle as expected, and that worker then built a mine to hurry along production, though I don't think I switched the citizen. Moscow's new worker has been building a road to connect our cities, while the worker at St. Pete has been connecting the resources there. Judaism spread to Edo in 790BC, prompting Tokugawa to adopt it. On the science front, I completed Writing, and chose Alphabet, though this has no points toward it and could be easily vetoed. We might want to think about a settler out of St. Pete before the axemen when it gets to size 3; the land in the West is disappearing at an alarming rate. Green dot is still available, but who knows for how long? Hope my first foray wasn't too filled with

dathon

 

[Sullla]

I think the turns look pretty good, Dathon. The thought of splitting up the red dot into two separate ones was an interesting call; if we were later in the game, with plenty of settlers available, I would have agreed with that thought. But since we're struggling for units here in a major way, sticking with one red dot city was probably the proper call.

Here's one minor thing I would have done differently: there's very little need at the moment for a road down from Moscow to St. Petersburg. We don't even have any troops to move on it! I'd have taken the new worker we produced and set him to mining the other plains hill tile, increasing the rate at which the Oracle will be finished. It's mostly a non-issue, but I'm just trying to point out that non-critical tasks should be delayed if there's something more important workers can be doing. (Notes for darkwatcher: make sure to swap Moscow's tiles from the 0/3/0 forest hill to the 0/4/0 mined hill tile that just completed. We'll pick up an extra shield and drop the Oracle ETA from 27 to 23 turns. We should also run max shields there once Moscow re-grows to size 5!)

We might want to think about a settler out of St. Pete before the axemen when it gets to size 3; the land in the West is disappearing at an alarming rate. Green dot is still available, but who knows for how long?

I'd disagree with this one; St. Pete's has zero food surplus, so it's actually not a very good candidate for building settlers. Even when it reaches size 3, it will only be getting 9 shields/turn, and with no food added to that, we won't be able to build settlers faster than one every 16 (!) turns. Not so great. Considering our aggressive neighbors here, we really need to stand up at least ONE axe in each of our cities before moving any further ahead. In short - let's not push our luck too far! (But we should definitely build/whip a settler in Moscow after the Oracle finishes.) Once the stone is connected at St. Pete's, we can probably send that worker over to Novgorod (let's get some cottages started on those floodplains!)

The Alphabet research is interesting; I thought it was a bad call at first, but now that I'm looking at the save, I've changed my opinion. The real question is, "can we make it through the next ~40 or so turns without Agriculture?" If the answer to that is yes, then Dathon's hit on the proper idea. (Agriculture/Sailing/Archery are all dirt cheap and can be grabbed easily in trades.) Let's bump science up to 80% (because we can manage it with no problem) and try to ride our way to early Alphabet tech.

Hope my first foray wasn't too filled with

Not nearly as much as Charis' first SG turn, and he turned out pretty good.

 

[dathon78]

I'd have taken the new worker we produced and set him to mining the other plains hill tile

You're probably right. My reasoning for the road was actually to start connecting our resources at St. Pete into Moscow. I simply HATE not having resources within my radius connected, especially happy ones. But we won't need that resource for awhile, and what can wait should. In any case, the worker still at Moscow just finished his mine, so he can go north to the other tile, delaying the mine by only a few turns. I definitely agree that those flood plains at Novgorod should be built soon. We're going to need the cash!

dathon

 

[Sullla]

Darkwatcher, you said before that you would play on Sunday - that day has come and gone now. Daylight Savings Time confusion, perhaps?

Please post back with your situation ASAP if you can't play. I don't like to issue skips, but I'll do so if necessary to keep the game moving - and you've already had the full 48 hours to play.

 

[darkwatcher]

Sorry , I got home at 12:00 and I'm exhausted so I need a skip sorry I thought I would get home at around 3:00

 

[Sullla]

Sorry , I got home at 12:00 and I'm exhausted so I need a skip sorry I thought I would get home at around 3:00

OK, well seeing as how you're up after me it won't be much of a skip. The roster looks like this:

Sullla <<< UP NOW
darkwatcher <<< on deck
LKendter
dathon78

I'll play later today and report back.

 

[dathon78]

This had probably been posted a million times, so I'll just ask for a link:

Can somebody link me to a troubleshooting page for Civ 4 screenies?

Thanks,
dathon

 

[Sullla]

(0) 685BC Notice that we're on an odd-numbered date for the turns. Whoops! Dathon must have played 11 turns. That's your first major charge of there! I guess I'll just play 9 to even us out.

Micromanage Moscow to pick up the newly mined hill tile and swap out our cottage tile for a grassland forest to pick up an extra shield; that drops the Oracle ETA from 28 turns to 20. (We'll go back and work on commerce here later, after we finish the wonder!) Increase funding to 80% on Alphabet because we can afford to do so. Also cancel our "road through the desert" worker project; that can wait. I'll have both workers focus on improving Moscow's shield output, which frankly is a much higher priority right now.

Apparently no one has done any diplomacy yet so far. Since it costs us nothing to do so and improves relations, I go ahead and sign Open Borders with the civs that are NOT up against our borders: Caesar and Bismarck. Now the scout can actually do something USEFUL for a change and scope out their lands! Keep an eye on those deals, as we may need to cancel them later, but I think we should leave them in place for now.

(2) 655BC Napoleon asks for Open Borders - no, not with him! At least not right now, anyways. Uneventful turns passing. Novgorod hits size 2, grabs the other floodplains tile to continue its fast growth (towards an eventual granary whip, natch!)

(3) 640BC Scout waves hi to the Romans:



Someday we'll be back to culture-flip this city, mark our words!

(4) 625BC St. Petersburg finishes a barracks, starts an axe. Napoleon has planted another city in our nearby region!



We're going to have to do something about this, of course... The next city will probably have to go in response to Rheims.

(5) 610BC Moscow hits size 5 (goes to max shields), St. Pete's maxes out at size 3. It's now up to 9 shields/turn, cranking axes every 6 turns. We should probably do that at least until the end of darkwatcher's turnset (get one axe in every city to feel somewhat safe).

(7) 580BC Temujin asks for Open Borders, and I figure we probably better agree! Keep an eye on this deal as well if you see Mongolian settlers trying to poach land in the west.

Caesar completes (OH NO!) the Great Lighthouse (WHEW!) That could have been bad.

(9) 550BC Another wonder falls (!!!) but it's the Pyramids. Good grief, we're getting very lucky here! Oracle due in 7 more turns LISTED, 4 more turns ACTUAL when accounting for the forest chop. Assuming we get it, we of course want to take Code of Laws and found Confucianism. I do think we're going to get the Oracle; those other wonder completion messages were actually GOOD news, because it means the AI civs were working on different wonders. Or I certainly hope so, anyway!

Next task for Moscow should be building/whipping a settler for the west. That green dot location is still the place to go, I think, as long as it's still available. I have the scout moving to check it right now. Longer term, we'll want to put a city here on purple dot:



Just to grab some more land and put pressure on Rheims. But this spot is already in our cultural territory, so it's 100% safe and can wait. Go for the green dot first and stake our claim over there! Oh, and send along an axe or two for some security too. First axe from St. Pete should probably head west, because it will take so long to reach the green dot location. Second one can go east to cover Novgorod. After that, we'll reevaluate and see what happens.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/12069/RB29a-BC-550.zip

 

[Sullla]

Just remember to grab Code of Laws and Confucianism with the Oracle when (if?) we get it! I forgot to post the roster, so here it is:

Sullla
darkwatcher <<< UP NOW
LKendter <<< on deck
dathon78

 

[dathon78]

Whoops! Dathon must have played 11 turns.

I may be confused as what exactly constitutes a turn. Unless I missed one, I counted 10 hits of the end-turn button as my ten turns. Is this right, or did I goof?

Dathon

 

[Mutineer]

If you press F8 it will tell you how many turn left. Note this number at start of your turns. Useally people leave it div 10.

 

[darkwatcher]

got it I think we should plant a city on the green dot. I'll play after some more discusion.