RB29a - Cultural Extermination

[LKendter]

I don't care how, but we must break the JC / Tokugawa pact.


That is another idea I thought off that may help with the last few cities.
We need the AIs damaged enough so that we can switch to cash rushed buildings in the front line (as in cathedrals).
The culture slider isn't very effective in size 1 cities with no cottages.

 

[Cosmichail]

We currently do have a monopoly on biology and imo is a tech that shouldn't be traded. Bottom line the easiest way to break the pact is get Toku to stop trading with JC and only cost us demo. Temujin for the same price will war with Biz too so getting that going may be an idea.

As to a two front war we are already in one against Bismarck/Napoleon. We do have enough happy though to declare on Toku once the pact is broken. Here's the kicker though. Stop trading -1 embargo with JC and if we declare on Toku another -1 for declaring on friend. I'd prefer we had more troops on that side and St. Petes will be ready to crank out cannons next turn.

Dathon....just a reminder I forget to take out a defender in Paris and the troops there can still attack. Could you before you start the first turn take care of that please.

Cross post with Lee

So we'd be needing US soon and like the idea of buying cathedrals. We'll need lots of gold (over 500 gold if iirc but just speculating). With a lot of coal plants coming online we should be able to build lots of temples fast.

 

[LKendter]

Bottom line the easiest way to break the pact is get Toku to stop trading with JC and only cost us demo. Temujin for the same price will war with Biz too so getting that going may be an idea.

It is well with giving up democracy to start damaging relations between JC and Toku.
Our best bet to win this game is for the two of them to go to war.

With a lot of coal plants coming online we should be able to build lots of temples fast.

Good point - we need a lot of temples to get the cathedrals in place.
Of course, we can also build missionaries like crazy. +2 CPT in front line cities speeds things up nicely.

As for the next tech, railroad sounds good as our workers need more to do, and increased production is always a good thing.

 

[Sullla]

Let's see... I'm going to concur that the best move for now seems to be feeding Tokugawa Democracy in exchange for canceling deals with Caesar. There's an excellent chance that that will decrease their relations to the point that one or the other will cancel the defensive pact. And the minute that the defensive pact breaks, we hit Toku at Edo with a ton of bricks. (If nothing will break their pact, then send Toku Biology in exchange for a war declaration.)

I would also agree with researching Railroad next, which will be a big help just in traversing our huge territory, not to mention the production aid. After that, we can go one of two ways: either take the Electricity/Radio route and go for Eiffel Tower (which would be HUGE for our variant, a cathedral in every city!) or take the Physics/Artillery/Rocketry path for gunships. Maybe first take path #1, then go for #2 after that?

There's not a big need to worry about our current ships dilemma. Berlin is on the coast, and once it flips it can build us all the ships we need. (Just remember to keep Berlin and not raze it!) We're almost like the real-life Russians, a bazillion miles of territory with no warm-water ports!

On that note, here are some new dot maps. First, the German front:



The great thing about Germany is that the cities are perfectly spaced for a cultural attack. (As opposed to Japan, where the spacing is just horrible!) Red dots will be open as soon as Berlin falls to us; getting to the island location may be a bit tricky, however. The yellow dot will fall into our territory pretty soon after Berlin and Hamburg fall. Aside from that, things look pretty much the same as before.

Roman front:



After a lot of trial and error, I FINALLY have a dotmap of the Roman lands that I'm comfortable with. The key breakthrough on this dotmap is the necessity of burning down Paris; that opens up the dark blue dot two tiles south, which is nicely only 3 tiles from Tours, and further starts putting pressure on some future white dot locations to the south. Pisae also needs to be destroyed, to make room for THREE new cities, including one to pressure the offshore islands. Offshore push cities are indicated in green for distinction.

Finally, the Eastern front:



Still waiting on Edo to knock out the defenders, flip/raze it, and then replace with light blue and magenta dots. Elsewhere, dark purple dot will soon be within our cultural purview, so keep an eye on that tile. Once Beshbalik is gone, we can replace with the lime green dot, and (later) the white dot in the extreme east.

Past that, I don't feel comfortable to place ANY dots on this map. I spent the last half-hour looking at it, and the southern Japanese cities are just in terrible, terrible spots for this variant. I just CANNOT find a way to get close to Osaka and Ning-hsia, argh! If Osaka were ONE tile to the south, this would be a piece of cake. Anyway, if someone else wants to play around with this, PLEASE do! The other fronts are easy, but I don't see much of a solution at present here.

I am worried we are running out of time, and artist are one of the few areas I can see to speed things up.

A very real concern, definitely. But I kind of look at this fatalistically. If we managed to finish by 2050AD, great! If not, then we wound up biting off more than we can chew, and so be it. I think we've proven that this variant is entirely possible, just very slow and time-consuming. We're already close to (if not over) the Domination limit, so it's not as though we "fail" even if the goal of Conquest falls short. I would just relax, enjoy the game, and see how far we can manage to get in the turns remaining.

 

[Cosmichail]

I would just relax, enjoy the game, and see how far we can manage to get in the turns remaining.

Isn't that what it's all about.

As to tech path I am inclined to go with no. 1 Eiffel Tower and then follow up with no 2. I just think we do have our work cut out for us and with Eiffel Tower would be much faster.

As to Toku's oddly placed cities we are going to need a war partner to go in and capture/raze some of his cities to break the culture influence. Lee mentioned about getting Toku/Caesar warring which would be great and with a cancel in trading that might make it easier. We just need bait for either to go to war.

So far that isn't available and Temujin just will war with Biz as well as Toku but it seems though that Caesar will consider everybody except Toku as he is friendly with him. Even with trade cut off that remains the same. So it's going to be tough to get them warring.

a few moments later.........(have a snooze while CIV loads)

Checked another thing and Temujin will go to war against Toku for demo/biology. Expensive but may trigger some city razings/capture. This offer only became available after the trade embargo on Julius. It won't be available before.

Ok now I start to think and this is somewhat of a continued gameplay in that I wanted to see the effect on JC/Toku/GK after trade embargo. To remove the "cheat" factor I feel that I should resubmit the game with the embargo already done. It is too bad there isn't a better way to test this theory out other than playing a shadow game. I did play something similiar (Augustus Caesar - a big fav) and was surprised to see that it didn't cancel the military pact only open borders. So I wanted to make sure that in our game (vanilla) it would remove the defensive pact between the two. Not only did it have an affect on Caesar but GK too. He after embargo would dow on Toku.

Now this is good since both are aggressive and always have a lot of units. What better way to wear them down. Hopefully that will give us an opening to Toku's odd positioning.

 

[Sullla]

Getting Caesar to declare war on Toku would be the Holy Grail for this particular game, even if we have to give away Biology to do it. If we can get Caesar and Temujin to declare war on Japan, AND pile on ourselves, we may just see some cities change hands down there.

Cosmichail, if you have time today, you may want to consider uploading a new save file from 1890AD with some of these diplomatic moves carried out. That would probably be easier than trying to explain exactly what you did to dathon, and having him replicate your steps.

 

[dathon78]

That would probably be easier than trying to explain exactly what you did to dathon, and having him replicate your steps.

Agreed. Especially since all these diplomatic posts are starting to blur together. I can see it now, at my desk tonight... "Let's see, they wanted me to give steel to Bismark to declare war on Temujin, causing Nappy to break deals with Washington's ghost, thereby drawing Julius into war with Irrational Isabella from RB30"

dathon

 

[Cosmichail]

Cosmichail, if you have time today, you may want to consider uploading a new save file from 1890AD with some of these diplomatic moves carried out.

Yes I will do that. The save will have the updated embargo trade only. Only one question: do we get Temujin in the war for biology/demo? Also it may be less costly if we declare on Toku after embargo then hopefully Temujin will go to war for less.

To clarify I only completed the embargo trade and never completed the "Temujin against Toku war move" although when asked to war with Toku he asks for demo/biology.

Maybe Caesar will take on Toku as the relationship sour from the trade embargo. Right this moment he is not interested even after embargo.

Trade embargo initiated with Toku:



He goes to pleased:



Effect on Julius:



Temujin's willing to war with Toku:



(this deal was not initiated awaiting team approval)

Julius's "we won't betray close friends"



The pact/open borders is cancelled now so we are free to declare on Toku.




Again it may be cheaper to declare on Toku first then get Temujin involved for less. There is a risk in that he may not want to due to declaring on friend so we need a team discussion on whether we get Temujin in "now" or after we declare.

New save with "embargo in place'.

 

[dathon78]

Alright, I did decide to bring Ghengis into war with Toku, but I decided to go with Demo/Steel rather than Demo/Biology. Biology is a monopoly tech, whereas Toku and Julius both know steel. Besides, given Toku's tech edge, I don't expect Khan will make much of his new toy. three turns after the declaration:



Well, that might solve the Japan problem; if we can come at it from Mongol lands, that city is in the perfect position to take Osaka. Next turn:



Alright! First Japanese revolt without a shot fired

Julius still won't declare on his best friend Toku, but Toku is warming to us, so maybe after he's done with Khan he'll help us out. Lost an infantry to bad odds at Berlin on my last turn, but other than that things were pretty quiet militarily. The tile N of Dortmund came available in 1898, and I've been hitting it with cannon fire since then. Only 3 riflemen in there right now. Hmmm... do oceanic units count towards flip supression? I sure hope not...

dathon

 

[Cosmichail]

but I decided to go with Demo/Steel rather than Demo/Biology. Biology is a monopoly tech,

Well done on keeping biology. I didn't check to see if they would accept other techs until the actual deal was ready to be finalized. Nice to see that we found a cheaper way to get the war going.

As to Toku I am glad we didn't declare on him. He's got SAM's and quite a army going there. We need to strengthen our military on that side since he also has lots of grens and we mostly have rifles defending in that area.

As to that spot opening up near Osaka we can traverse Mongolian lands with our settler since according to the variant we can enter lands with open borders. What's more peaceful than a settler who intends to culture all your land away.

Actually a nice opportunity to get near Osaka and hopefully by the time the settler gets there it will still be available.

The two tiles are dropping fast. Two turnsets ago, the Japan tile was at 75% and now 58%. The French tile is now 59% so not long to go and once that Mandir builds should speed it up. Julius is now -4 for close borders and isn't that far from going to cautious now. (+5) No wonder he "lost his bananas" during Dathon's turnset. I'd be mad too if someone stole my bananas.

Somehow I think Temujin is going to loose that war as Toku seems strong although it's hard to see what Temujin has but I think he's toast.

 

[Sullla]

As to that spot opening up near Osaka we can traverse Mongolian lands with our settler since according to the variant we can enter lands with open borders. What's more peaceful than a settler who intends to culture all your land away.

Might want to hold your horses there, Cosmichail - looks like Ning-hsia was captured, not razed. Still good news for us regardless; now let's hope for some RAZINGS in Mongolia!

Somehow I think Temujin is going to loose that war as Toku seems strong although it's hard to see what Temujin has but I think he's toast.

Last I checked, Temu didn't have anything better than rifles on defense. He's gonna be in trouble against Toku's SAMs and cannon.

Playing tonight.

 

[Cosmichail]

You right Sullla he did capture it and don't know why I thought it was razed. Usually Toku razes a lot like Temujin. (that's funny as you aren't the first to tell me to hold my horses.)

Wouldn't hurt though to have a peaceful expedition nearby ready to jump on anything that opens up.

I am surprised at Toku's teching. Having rocketry means he be can't too far from gunships.

Have fun Sullla......

 

[Sullla]

(0) 1900AD Run through our cities and adjust a few minor issues, but again everything is mostly running very, very smoothly. Most interestingly, I wake up our old knight and tell him to wander around in Temujin's territory to give us an idea of what's going on there. Look what Tokugawa has heading for Khan:



Eep! Yeah - we're not quite ready to attack Tokugawa just yet. Let's build some more infantry first - a lot more.

(1) 1901AD Woohoo!



After all those turnsets where I never got a flip, now I'm apparently the luckiest guy in the world. Go figure! I burn down Edo and grab one of our settlers to replace the spot one tile north. Now we DON'T have to declare on Toku anytime soon, because we're not even remotely close to flipping any of his other cities. What a strange game!

I also kill all but one defender in Hamburg (no losses taken). Sure, the city's only at 55% culture, but if we can kill 'em, might as well!

(2) 1902AD Beshbalik captured by Japan!



Well, that will make our job a whole lot easier. This poor city was originally Mongolian, then was in American hands for a long time, then Mongolian again, now Japanese. Since the culture there has been reset to 0, it'll flip to us much MUCH sooner than if it had remained in Temujin's hands.

Poor Khan! I don't think this is what he expected when we asked him to declare war on Tokugawa!

(3) 1903AD Did you know that we have oil connected, even without knowing Combustion? It's true!



We've culturally acquired Caesar's oil well! (Unfortunately, he has another on in the extreme south.) This is a bit of a loophole in the game (the most common occurence is when you culturally acquire a Calendar resource without having the tech), but we may as well take advantage of it.

(6) 1906AD Discover Railroad, start research on Physics (11 turns) en route to Radio and Eiffel. Workers get busy again. Caesar completes the Pentagon in Rome - not exactly good news, unfortunately.

(8) 1908AD Toku and Temujin sign peace. Wall Street finishes, increasing our income by over 100 gold per turn! In other words, we're now up to 70% on the culture slider, still making a significant profit.

(10) 1910AD And that's pretty much it. Uneventful end to my turnset. We're pretty much waiting for Berlin to flip at this point (should happen any moment now, probably about a 7% odds every turn) at which point we can found another city 3 tiles south, plus another on the offshore island (that is, once we can get a ship in position!) Paris is at 50% French culture and should start revolting soon too; a bunch of German cities are at about 53%, and continuing to fall slowly.

We're not exactly moving at rocket speed here, but we ARE pushing forward slowly.

Map of what's left of France:



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

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/12069/RB29a-AD-1910.zip

 

[LKendter]

On the plate for tommorrow.

I should have went to bed 1/2 an hour ago.

 

[Cosmichail]

We've culturally acquired Caesar's oil well! (Unfortunately, he has another on in the extreme south.) This is a bit of a loophole in the game (the most common occurence is when you culturally acquire a Calendar resource without having the tech), but we may as well take advantage of it.

Sullla does that mean we could theoretically forego combustion and with industrialism build tanks?? This exploit is gone in warlords I do believe but find it interesting can still take advantage of it in vanilla. I did notice oil shows up in our strategic resources list as well. (checking tanks I see it needs rifling/industrialism and oil)

War effort

As to the war with Toku/Khan it would appear to not have gained us much. I wonder too how Temujin can be pleased with Toku with a -1 and Toku -6 with him and be cautious. mmmmmmmm Seems the AI get an advantage there. I don't think though Toku/JC will enter into DP again since Toku is at +4 with JC (still pleased) but may not be enough to enter into DP again. They seem to be a happy bunch Toku/GK/JC.

You are lucky btw, nice on Edo flipping without having to use force. Did the war cause him to empty that somewhat and make the flip easier?

Oxford

I notice too we are building the 6th university which will open up Oxford. From what I can tell Bryansk seems to be our best science city 40 beakers. Next best is Rostov at 38 beakers. Either city can easily hold 5 scientists. (that university is a slow build though)

Spies

Just have a question re the variant. I know this isn't a priorty but I'm just curious if spies are allowed in this game since I wouldn't necessarily consider that a peaceful endeavour.

Globe theatre

I DO like Lee's idea about the Globe and getting us an artist factory. There are several cities able to accomodate this including Tver which has plenty of food and already hosting many specialists. Getting some more Great artists would be a great help.

Hopefully I can get in a few more rounds before my OOP. Even though I am without internet access during that time I will check in on my friend's computer from time to time.

Team effort

I am very impressed with this team and have to say this SG is one of the most enjoyable games I've played. Sullla your excellent leadership has made it a lot easier to understand the dynamics of this game. (although me laughs when Lee comments about having to go to war with no new units being built)

 

[dathon78]

You are lucky btw, nice on Edo flipping without having to use force. Did the war cause him to empty that somewhat and make the flip easier?

Yep, I noticed that on my turnset. His garrison in that city went from 4-5 troops to 1-2.

BTW, something else I forgot to mention, there's a stack of 5 cannon sitting in St. Pete for when we go on the offensive again. And there's a Buddhist missionary waiting above Rostov for a new city (I thought we'd be establishing a city in German lands first. Guess I called that wrong!)

dathon

 

[LKendter]

http://forums.civfanatics.com/uploads/1898/RB29_-_Cultural_Extermination_AD-1920.Civ4SavedGame


1910 AD
I know our economy is hurting, but I don't understand why a Murmansk (a front line city) is building a courthouse when there are cultural buildings available.

Rostov will build iron works next, as it is our 2nd best shield city.
(IT) I am going let Moscow build a few workers. 13 workers is way to light for the number of tiles that need rails.


1911 AD
(IT) UGGG - France just got a great artist.


1914 AD
Since I didn't get a notice, I can only guess that the Beshbalik revolt was from Mongolia.


1917 AD
(IT) I hope this isn't a sign of trouble brewing. Tokugawa just cancelled open borders.


1919 AD
(IT) Just as I was getting depressed due to no flips my turn...






1920 AD
We have another prophet.
I think we have 1/2 of a golden age.

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

Summary:

I think Washington should stay on permanent Islamic missionaries. I realize we don't have that shrine, but this will let us push 2 CPT to the front line cities.

I continued to spread religion, and built more temples to allow for cathedrals in our front line cities.

I am becoming more convinced the culture slider is ineffective for this variant. Looking back I would have revolted to caste system and farmed the front lines like crazy.
It is to late to change, but I think the artist can come into play ASAP rather then waiting an eternity for maturing cottages. Science wouldn't be a problem, as our back line cities would hire plenty of scientists.

 

[KMadCandy]

lurker's comment:

Just have a question re the variant. I know this isn't a priorty but I'm just curious if spies are allowed in this game since I wouldn't necessarily consider that a peaceful endeavour.

hypothetically, maybe, possibly, at least one other team has kind of sort of maybe built a spy or two. but in this alternate world they have only used them for information gathering, not for sabotage. sabotage was discussed and it was decided that would be bad form and nothing has been sabotaged to date. i mean, theoretically, it would have been discussed and decided against, if this had all happened. which i'm not saying it did.

just sayin'

 

[Cosmichail]

hypothetically, maybe, possibly, at least one other team has kind of sort of maybe built a spy or two. but in this alternate world they have only used them for information gathering, not for sabotage. sabotage was discussed and it was decided that would be bad form and nothing has been sabotaged to date. i mean, theoretically, it would have been discussed and decided against, if this had all happened. which i'm not saying it did.

I understand hypothetically that spies can be used but only for information gathering. Sabotage would be in bad form for this variant and appreciate the input KMadCandy theoretically.

I see that I'm up and this is my "got it" and will be playing late tonight.

 

[Cosmichail]

This set was very quiet other than taking out a few rifles here and there.

Turn 1

Moscow finishes a temple starts another
Yaro &#8211; Taoist temple
Samarra is Hindu now
Murmansk is Islamic now
A Russian revolt in Setia&#8230;&#8230;

Turn 2

Vlad &#8211; barracks
Yekaterineburg &#8211; Bank
Smolensk &#8211; settler
Bryansk &#8211; Hindu temple
Kursk rejects Islam

Turn 3

Moscow &#8211; infantry
St. Petes &#8211; infantry
Frankfurt &#8211; factory
Berlin &#8211; granary

Turn 4

Napoleon asks for peace but I say nay.
Vlad starts an infantry (to replace archer which will be disbanded once infantry is done)
(We do have a lot of old units around. During this set too I upgrade the odd rifle at the front lines to keep us safe)

Rostov builds Ironworks and growing in 3 turns. There are no tiles to work and only 2 food surplus but with IW only 1 now so set city to no growth so we don&#8217;t get starvation.

Turn 5

St. Petes &#8211; infantry
Novogrod &#8211; Confucian temple
Bryansk start Oxford. (after checking around Vlad has 44 beakers but I am also thinking about the culture. The other city imo that would be best is Samarra since it&#8217;s pumping 35 beakers without uni/ob. Problem there is, no production and uni/ob will take a while to build so I opt for Bryansk yielding 46 beakers right now. (more than Moscow)

Turn 6

Moscow starts a Buddhist temple.
Ark starts a factory
Toko start a Buddhist temple
Islam fails in Vologda

Turn 7

Moscow &#8211; Taoist temple. (Julius busy spreading Taoism to our cities)
Smolensk &#8211; Buddhist temple
Vologda now accepts Islam

Turn 8

St. Petes finishes cannon start a Buddhist temple
Novogrod starts as Jewish temple
Chela starts a Jewish Synagogue.
Saratov &#8211; starts a granary (change citizens to artists after building theatre)

Turn 9

Vlad starts a Buddhist missionary
Rostov starts &#8220;Broadway&#8221;(obviously we have discovered Electricity)
Rostov after building I/W has some serious production and can do it in 14 turns.
Orleans starts a Buddhist temple
Vologda &#8211; coal plant
Munich &#8211; factory
Islam fails for Novosibirsk but the second one does work.
Berlin starts a galleon to transport settler to island. (settler already there and waiting)

Turn 10

Yaro &#8211; Observatory
Philly &#8211; coal plant

Not a lot of screenies as there wasn&#8217;t much in the way of action. The only development that concerns me is this:



This Julius is teching fast. Hopefully that will work having oil connected without combustion because then we could go for industrialism next. I also noticed that Toku has artillery.