RB9 - Cottage Cheese

[Sullla]

Turn 0 - 1810AD: Since we have recently built the Broadway, we have four extra musicals that are just burning a hole in our pocket. We have 1336 gold in the bank, but we are spending at -44gpt. Qin and Toku will each give us 10gpt for a musical, while Gandhi only has 7gpt to give. Nobody else has enough cash to bother selling to at the moment. We are down to -17gpt after those 3 trades and still have an extra musical for future trading.

Honestly, I think this is a bad move. The AI is notoriously bad at collecting happiness resources; that's why their cities usually are so low in population. We really don't need the income, and we're giving them the ability to grow to larger sizes? Money is one thing we don't need, so I would cancel those deals. Agreed that we need to start a major push for space now; I wouldn't even have gone for Mass Media myself, but that's OK.

Sullla
Conroe
Garath
Bede <<< UP NOW
Methos <<< on deck

 

[Bede]

Looking at it now, play it tomorrow.

As this is the point where my game falls on its knees, any and all suggestions welcome and appreciated.

 

[Plasia]

We really don't need the income, and we're giving them the ability to grow to larger sizes?

Sure you dont need the income, but what if they do? To a small extent you are hampering unit upgrades and maybe even forcing them to drop their science rate thus putting you further ahead in the tech race. 1 extra happiness in each city wont produce the gold needed to cover the costs needed for it for quite a while. You can always cancel the trade and have them starve back down again.

Also I would consider it a bonus that you are losing less every turn, sure you dont need the cash, but how are you making money? Mostly from what I've seen it is from selling off tech, you could start pulling away in the tech race more by needing to share it less.

In the case of such a small amount of money though, those points may be invalid. I'd wait till they'd dig into their pockets a bit more before leeching their cash.

 

[Araqiel]

Lurker comment:

Does the AI use cultural slider to keep its citizens happy, or let its cities grow unhappy (as I do too often)? If so one extra happiness for that amount of GPT is certainly a net plus for their empire.

 

[Sullla]

In reponse to comments, no the AI does not use the cultural slider to keep its citizens happy (at least, in all the investigating of AI cities I've done with spies and with debug mode during testing, I've never seen it). The AI gets MASSIVELY reduced war weariness instead; this is totally unfair, but it's kind of necessary to prevent a total collapse of the AI once war starts. The notion that the AI civs will be unable to increase the science rate because they are paying out 5-10gpt is ludicrous to me; in Civ4, that's tiny chump change. I can't possibly see that making much of a difference in their science rate.

How many times have you seen AI cities that are stuck at size 12 or 13 when yours are 20+? That's partly because they over-cottage their tiles, but also partly because the AI civs simply don't accumulate resources well. This is a GOOD thing in some respects, as in Civ3 the AI civs would share luxuries with each other for pennies, but it's still a weakness of the AI design. They simply don't understand the importance of resources in the same way that a human would.

Here's an example of an AI city from our Adventure Four game:



This is a bit of an extreme example, but Madras is clearly stuck at size 11 for lack of happiness resources. Do you really want to send this civ TWO happiness luxuries for ~20gpt, and let India work two additional towns in every city? Me neither.

Sometimes you have to think not just "does this help me?" but "does this help the other guy more?"

 

[Atlas]

In the late game changing the science slider by 10% changes the gold by b/w +/- 50-100 gold a turn. 5-15 gpt for a luxury is not going to ****** AI science. As Sullla showed all that will happen is they will grow larger, and in the end produce more science b/c of the additional growth, but if you can trade for an addtional resource this is normally more beneficial to the human than the AI because you can more productively work the tiles of your city (look at Sullla's Madras there, are those the tiles you would be working ). Great Game you guys got here though!! A very good read.

Atlas

 

[Bede]

Turn 295 (1850 AD)
Kill the deal for Musicals per Sulla's strictures, then review the diplomatic situation and decide that a little excursus of the Jackal Corps might be in order per Garath's suggestion.

We are one turn from artillery so taking a little peek at Corinth will be useful, though the terrain might make that tricky. Troops move from Sparta into India to go take a look-see with follow up from everywhere else

Tech learned: Artillery
Atlanta finishes: Infantry


Turn 296 (1852 AD)
Atlanta begins: Infantry
Atlanta grows: 12
Chengdu finishes: Infantry
The Jackals are on the march from Sparta, Philadelphia and Washington

Turn 297 (1854 AD)
Chengdu begins: Infantry
Research begun: Industrialism
Set research to Industrialism so we might have something to trade as Rocketry, Rails and Combustion are already known and I really want to know if we have aluminium. Besides training some SEALs and sending a couple of boatloads to harass the Indian flanks might be fun! It will obsolete the ivory and cost some happiness points, but the wine at Sparta real be back on line real soon now.

New York finishes: Rock N Roll

Philadelphia finishes: Observatory

Toku looks just like Gandhi. Has Rockets and Rails and Big Red but won't trade


Turn 298 (1856 AD)
We can pick up Railroads which are only useful as the path to Compbustion from Bismarck for Physics and Biology, not sure I want to do that deal, or Medicine and Radio to Gandhi, definitely don't want to do that one, or Biology and Assembly to the Japanese, and that is clearly out. The German deal is the best one and we will be needing Combustion so make this deal with the Chancellor


Even get war with the Greek as a bonus. If we don't capture Corinth its fall will take pressure off Sparta

New York begins: Infantry
Philadelphia begins: Artillery

Turn 299 (1858 AD)
Rearrange the deals with India to get the same resources but deny him Ivory
Delphi falls to the Chinaman so our infantry crosses the border at Corinth and we are now at war with Greece. Do not make the mistake of ticking off the guy with the deep pockets. He will finish you in the end....
New York finishes: Infantry
Atlanta finishes: Infantry
Chengdu finishes: Infantry
Antony van Leeuwenhoek (Great Scientist) born in Chengdu and what am I going to do with him? It's early for a Golden Age, I think.

Turn 300 (1860 AD)
Atlanta begins: Artillery
Chengdu begins: National Epic because it has a high output of GPP and we will surely be able to use them in the near future. It is not the best choice if we want to pressure Nanking, but we have gone about as far as we can with that one anyway, I think.

Send the Scientist to Boston for another research boost and build an Academy

New York begins: Infantry
A scouting report from Corinth


Lose the scouting rifleman at Corinth after a pitched battle

Rifleman defeats (11.62/14): Greek Rifleman
Rifleman loses to: Greek Rifleman (1.68/14)

The rest of the troops hold hard on the hill in India until I can work out the right promotions for them.

Turn 301 (1862 AD)

The race is on! The game is afoot!


Bismark's expedition into Greece




Turn 302 (1864 AD)

New York finishes: Artillery
Boston finishes: Ironworks
Atlanta finishes: Artillery
Chengdu finishes: Artillery

Turn 303 (1866 AD)
New York begins: Artillery
Boston begins: Hollywood We are going to need some more happiness and the culture won't hurt either and we are still some turns from tanks and plenty of troops in the war zone and more on the way

Atlanta begins: Infantry
Tech learned: Industrialism and we have two sources of Aluminium, one at New York, the other at Sparta.

Turn 304 (1868 AD)
Research begun: Computers on the road to Robotics.

Make a deal with Bismarck



Tanks and transports and destroyers hooray! Just have to dig an oil well.

The Seige of Corinth. Bismarck is withdrawing, the Chinese are advancing, the Americans are watching with interest




New York finishes: Artillery

Turn 305 (1870 AD)
The Chinese pound the defenses at Corinth into dust and splinters. The Jackal Corps goes on the hunt!



There are five Wounded Greeks in the garrision (four rock throwers and a rifle) and five gunpowder troops rady to roll

Infantry defeats (20.00/20): Greek Catapult
Rifleman defeats (14.00/14): Greek Rifleman
Infantry defeats (20.00/20): Greek Catapult
Rifleman defeats (14.00/14): Greek Catapult
Rifleman defeats (14.00/14): Greek Catapult

Five hits, five runs, no errors!!!!



Turn 305 (1870 AD)

Corinth begins: Theatre
New York begins: Drydock for our Indian Harassment Force.

There are workers in place to rework the vineyards at Sparta, then move on down and connect up Corinth. The rest of the worker corps (5) has finsihed the rail net connecting the nation from north to south and putting rails at all the mining locations. There is a worker digging an oil well at Philadelphia.

The deals with India are for one happy and one health resource. Most of the cities are at or close to their food limits so canceling those deals when they come up for renewal may stunt growth just enough to prevent starvation. And having the wine at Sparta and the movies from Hollywood will deal with the happiness. Some towns are either stagnated or on "Avoid growth" for that reason as they only have one slice of bread in the cupboard. I don't have an intuitive feel yet for just how much losing a health resource will affect production, so I kept them as I didn't want to lose any hammers to sickness.

Unless something changes drastically India and Japan are our rivals in this race. Qin and Bismarck are clearly also rans. No one has finished Apollo yet though Rocketry was out there from the start. I have not looked at the resource situation in any detail so I don't know where the aluminium is.

From sea to shining sea

 

[Methos]

Got it, but unsure about when I can play. Will attempt to tomorrow.

 

[Sullla]

Excellent work on the capture of Corinth, Bede. I am a little worried that we STILL do not have Rocketry yet (remember, it's going to take a long time to build that Apollo Program), but as long as we go for it next after Computers, we should be OK...

I know Bede said he didn't know if we have aluminum, that leads me to believe that we probably don't, since you get a popup telling you if you do. I hope that's not the case, or else this game (with our limited production) might get REAL interesting. In any case, don't trade away anything to Gandhi or Tokugawa, and zero in on going for that spaceship. I don't think we've got enough votes to win by diplomacy, and the other victory types clearly aren't going to happen in this game!

 

[Bede]

Tech learned: Industrialism and we have two sources of Aluminium, one at New York, the other at Sparta.

THe news about our aluminium got buried at Turn 302, sorry, should have hung a dancing banana on it. What I meant to say is that I didn't look to see if anybody else had any.

 

[Garath]

Huzzah for the Jackal Corps!

Yeah, we were expecting a Rocketry beeline at that point. Let's hope it doesn't hurt. I *think* we have enough production that the limiting factor should still be tech, but I'm not at all certain.

You say the other victory types aren't possible, Sullla, and you're almost certainly right. But we aren't as weak as all that any more. We might be able to cope well enough with War to slow at least one of the top two down, Toku more easily than Gandhi due to his lack of proximity. We should try to build enough military that we have some hope of doing that as and when we can, I think. We may not have a choice.

Garath

 

[Bede]

Just my two cents worth: Rocketry is there for the purchase if we want to from Gandhi or Toku and waiting for Bismarck will only make it that much cheaper. Having all our ducks in a row towards Robotics (Elevator) and the other multiplier buildings even before starting Apollo means that once we start to build them they will come quickly, or at least more quickly than without them in our less than stellar output situation, which is not all that bad now that we have factories and coal plants and an Iron Works.

 

[Methos]

I don't believe I'll be able to get to this one tonight. I've got another turnset to play and I think that'll take up all my free time I have for tonight. The next chance I have is on Wednesday so I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask for a skip. Sorry everyone.

Roster:
Sullla- Up
Conroe- On Deck
Garath
Bede
Methos- Requests a skip

 

[Sullla]

Alright, I see it and will play tomorrow night. Let's continue blazing that path to the stars on the basis of nothing but cottages!

 

[Sullla]

(0) 1870AD Go through our cities, change a few minor nits in the tile selection, nothing major... We definitely need the 10% culture tax at the moment, although I'm going to work on changing that during my turn. We can certainly build some temples/markets for happiness still... Also notice that no one followed my recommendation to build two cathedrals in Atlanta. Ah well. Not all that important.

(1) 1872AD More military completes. I set Atlanta to building a cathedral. Timing builds so every city can start labs once we finish computers in 4 turns. Redistributing military so that we have strong forces everywhere (New York still has an archer and elephant right now!) Wines hooked up and we are back to 100% science! Research goes from 1395 to 1555 beakers/turn.

(2) 1874AD Chengdu finishes National Epic (good call too, this is the right city for it).

(4) 1878AD Computers discovered, many labs started. Start research into the obvious Rocketry.

(6) 1882AD *YAWN* These turns are very quiet... Saladin has decided to be a jerk and stick a tiny city next to Corinth, but it's not likely to do much - we'll probably get a flip there.



(7) 1884AD We lose out on that weirdo free clams from Tokugawa, so I just send him our extra wines and he goes away happy. Discover Rocketry, start Plastics on the way to Genetics (Space Elevator). Build UN in Washington:



First resolution should be to force everyone else into Universal Suffrage with us. Get them out of Representation! Waiting on Boston to finish Hollywood to have it start Apollo. Sell Physics to backwards China for 690g.



(9) 1888AD Boston builds Hollywood, starts Apollo (12). Our happiness issues are over forever! We are elected as the UN Secretary-General; Bis and Qin voted for us, but everyone else voted for Gandhi. It was very close, 332 (us) to 286 (G-Man). Diplomatic victory is thus unlikely, unless we go into heavy warring.

(10) 1890AD And yet another quiet turn to end it. Flight is out there and three civs have it (Gandhi, Tokugawa, and Bis) but there are no deals worth making at the moment. Flight is totally optional, so we can choose to ignore it if we want. I'd say to keep pushing along for the spaceship, unless you guys want an exciting warring end to the game. Honestly, I don't really see much gain to doing that, however... We're killing everyone in GNP, no surprise there, and we're actually second in production. Yes, shockingly. Beware the power of fully maxed-out towns!

 

[Sullla]

Map:



And here's another interesting idea. If we want to be total jerks, we can found a city here on the red dot:



It won't cost us anything, and it already has enough tiles to get up to size 6 or 7. Plus, the tiles marked with blue Xs are at 50% German and sure to fall to us shortly. Build a city on the red dot, run an artist there (from Statue), have it build a theatre and some other culture stuff, and we'll have a good chance to grab even more tiles. Anyway, it's something to play around with.

EDIT: Whoops, the spot I indicated is not a legal location for a city. Nevermind!

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads11/RB9AD-1890.Civ4SavedGame

Sullla
Conroe <<< UP NOW
Garath <<< on deck
Bede
Methos

 

[Bede]

Due to sudden computer failure I am off games until I get it fixed
Please skip until I check back in.

 

[Conroe]

Turn 0 - 1890AD: I'm not sure that our plan to flip Nanjing is going to work. The city is 51% Chinese; IIRC, it used to be 40-something percent Chinese on a previous turn. Although, we have stolen a farm tile from the city since my last set, so it yet may be possible.



A city that may flip, though, is Corinth. It is only 10% American and is being pressured by the Indian city of Kolhapur. I'm assuming that is why we are building a Theatre in this city. I will continue with cultural improvements here. Another religion here would also help, so I preempt the Laboratory build in Philly for a Christian Missionary.



Our Great Merchant is fortied in Chengdu. I assume that we are saving him for a golden age.

Turn 1 - 1892AD: Washington constructs a Laboratory and starts special forces training: a SEAL. Chengdu also completes a Laboratory and begins Tank training. Atlanta completes its Laboratory and starts construction of the 2 Temples that were previously placed in its build queue.

IBT: Tokugawa completes the Apollo program.

Turn 2 - 1894AD: Plastics comes in and I start us on Robotics. Apparently, both Tokugawa and Gandhi already have Plastics.

I put Universal Suffrage up for a vote before the UN.



Meanwhile, Philly finishes that missionary and resumes work on its Laboratory.

Turn 3 - 1896AD: Washington completes a Navy SEAL and starts constructing a Christian Temple. This may allow us to build a second Christian Cathedral down the road.

Corinth completes its Theatre and starts a temple. The culture situtation is slowly improving.

The Universal Suffrage vote failed. Bismark was the only other civ to vote for it. Bismark is also the only other civ currently in Universal Suffrage. A look at the trade screen shows the civics choices all in red, so we cannot even bribe anyone to switching before the next vote.



IBT: Gandhi has completed the Apollo program.

Turn 4 - 1898AD: DC resumes special forces training now that the temple is complete. Our first tank comes off of the assembly line in NY. We should get 2 more out of the city before it starts building space ship parts.

Turn 5 - 1900AD: Philly completes its Laboratory and starts on a Tank. Atlanta completes its last Temple and begins the Christian Cathedral. Chengdu completes a Tank and has time for one more before building space ship parts.

IBT: Gandhi is looking for a free handout. Its a tough call. I decide to decline because he is one of our two space ship rivals. He is still pleased with us, though. In hindsight, I probably should have given it to him. I was thinking that Medicine was a required tech for one of the space ship parts; but it wasn't, Biology is.


EDIT: I messed up the crop on this image (obviously). He was asking that we give him Medicine.

Turn 6 - 1902AD: Universal Suffrage is up for a vote again.

Turn 7 - 1904AD: The UN vote failed again.



Turn 8 - 1906AD: Robotics comes in and I start us on Fiber Optics.

A Great Scientist is born in Chengdu. I figure it is probably better to wait until the Apollo program is complete before starting our golden age.

Washington can build the Space Elevator in 22 turns. Boston can build it in 16 turns; however, the city still has 3 turns remaining on the Apollo program. Since it will be quicker to wait, I decide to leave DC on special forces training and I add the Space Elevator to Boston's build queue.

Turn 9 - 1908AD: Atlanta completes its Christian Cathedral. The Apollo program will be done in 2 turns. Since there are no units that I can build in Atlanta in 2 turns, I set the city to building culture. When the Apollo comes it, it can start on space ship parts.

Turn 10 - 1910AD: Universal Suffrage comes up for a UN vote again.

Another uneventful set of turns. The Apollo program will come in next turn. And, I've managed to time all of the unit builds to also complete next turn. We will have 5 cities ready to start building space ship parts. Also note that the Space Elevator is sitting in Boston's build queue.

As for our two space race opponents, they have not completed any parts, yet. Tokugawa has Satellites, which he is unwilling to trade to us. Gandhi has recently picked up Computers.

Our two great leaders are fortified in Chengdu, ready for a golden age. Also, we are almost out of money, so we will probably be coming off of 100% research pretty soon.

 

[Sullla]

Alright, best to save the Golden Age for the last couple techs/parts. We're obviously not going to get the Universal Suffrage civic to pass at the moment, hopefully down the road we can bribe someone into joining us there, thereby getting them to vote for us. Getting Gandhi/Tokugawa out of Representation would be good... As far as money concerns, we can probably scrounge up some cash by sending an outdated tech to someone other than our spaceship competitors.

Garath, you know what to do.

 

[Bede]

Back on the air and ready to rock and roll to space.