RBD25 - The Mongol Menace

[Zed-F]

Purpose of game: We all know that the human players own the AI when it comes to Industrial-age combat. Steam Power, Nationalism, and Industrialization turn even relatively weak player civs into powerhouses capable of amassing a decisive assault force at any point on the map in short order. In most of the RBD games, it's a matter of building up until we hit critical mass in the Industrial era, then vaulting away from the competiton; this is particularily true on the easier (Monarch) games.

So, let's try something a bit different: an examination of ancient and middle-ages combat, under strenuous conditions. In this instance, strenuous conditions doesn't mean introducing a variant flavour (e.g RBD13 Cretans), it means playing on Deity level. In order to not *completely* handicap us I choose a civ suited to war: the Chinese. The Mongol Riders will give us a significant edge, providing we survive that long...

Game Parameters:
- Civ: Subotai of the Chinese
- Small map, Pangaea, 60% water
- Random landform/climate
- Raging barbarians
- Difficulty: Deity (or at least Emperor)
- Victory conditions: All but diplomatic (likely conquest or domination)
- 5 civs (one less than max)
- Opponent civs include Persia, others random. We gotta have X-man in there!

Standard rules:
- 24/72 hr time limit
- no save/reload
- no worker automation or long gotos
- Turn length <=20 for round 1, <= 10 subsequently

Special rules:
- We must be #1 in terms of power on the histogram by the time any civ reaches the Industrial era or WE LOSE automatically!

Suggestions:
- We don't care too much about research as we will likely buy into most techs once we discover the other civs; we do want some wonders, however. In the Ancient era our top priority is the Great Library, with a secondary objective of the Pyramids. In the Middle Ages we want Sun Tzu above all, and Leo's, Sistine, or Bach if we can get them. Other wonders are strictly optional and likely won't be bothered with (except if we need to stop a cascade.) Note that the Great Wall will trigger our Golden Age so be careful not to get it before we're in Monarchy (likely choice since we expect to be at war a lot.)

Player list: By invitation. If not enough invited players want to participate I will open up the game but since it's on Deity we need "committed" players to participate. Invited list:
- Charis
- Jaffa
- Sirian
- Cyrene
- Carbon Copy
- Jester
- Schnarrd
- Arathorn
- Smegged
- OneInTen
- Toecheese3
- Anyone I missed who played in RBD1-6 or LOTR1

The game will not start prior to Tuesday, allowing people to enjoy the Easter weekend.

So, who's interested? Sign up below!

 

[Sirian]

- We must be #1 in terms of power on the histogram by the time any civ reaches the Industrial era or WE LOSE automatically!

Well... here's a look at the powergraph in my current deity game in the year 350BC, just a few turns (literally) before the AI's collectively entered the Industrial era. I had just gotten horseback riding and was building my second horseman, with Literature due in a few more turns, and the cascade sweeping through Bach's, Smith's and Shakespeare's. That's 350BC.

- Sirian

 

[Sirian]

Now that result is with the Farmer's Gambit, two cattle and a river at my capital, no military to start except minimal scouts, until the first six or eight cities were founded and I had grabbed all the luxuries anywhere remotely near my start location, then max cranking of barracks and units from two thirds of my cities while the rest continued to build settlers and workers. No infrastructure and no culture. If I had stopped to try to build a wonder, my power rating would be HALF of what you see there.

Attempting ancient warfare under Deity is one thing. Hoping to survive it is another. Picking on more than one opponent is something else entirely. Making a list of wonders you plan to build that has more than one name on it is unrealistic, and particularly impossible if you have ANY other objectives. Even so, there is always a chance to just hang on and hang around while the AI's fight one another, like you guys managed in RBD15, but to reach the top of the power curve before any AI's reach industrial era? Good luck!


- Sirian

 

[Carbon_Copy]

Nice to see my name on the invite list, but I'm overbooked. Maybe if I hadn't managed to finally hook myself on Baldur's Gate, and if Diety in 1.17 wasn't so ridiculous in the tech trading (350 BC and in the Industrial Age? That's why Emperor is my upper limit).

But good luck. Sounds like it will be needed.

 

[smegged]

But my upper limit is Emperor. And I haven't played any *solo* emperor games to completion yet either.

It sounds like a good concept, but I'm afraid luck would have more to do with it than anything else. You'd have to get lucky (or restart) with your starting position, because you need to make up for a HUGE building disadvantage.

If this was emperor difficulty, I may consider playing. But this is a hardcore variant in conditions that are insanely against you anyway.

 

[Zed-F]

Well, early feedback suggests "not Deity". Ok, how about Emperor then? We already did Emperor conquest in RBD4, but we had to wait until rails to really go on the offensive... however, we weren't militaristic, and we weren't really looking for a fight so we weren't always as prepared for one as we could have been.
That suit any better?

 

[Charis]

The OCC deity game went well, and I think (?) there was some interest in another deity. It's just that the rule added here made it completely undoable (Sirian's right about the speed with which the AI will get to Industrial age)

A deity game with only conquest and domination enabled would be tougher/different from the two deity SG's so far, but... it would very very likely be a game where we 'held out' til tanks then tediously mopped up.

Just changing the diff to Emperor doesn't fix the problem of things being too luck dependent, or at least on factors beyond our control (ie speed of the tech race). One alternative to consider: "we can't get any techs from the Industrial Age" would be somewhat rough, and a good challenge for Emperor diff.
This may not, timing-wise, work out for me, there's some things going on at work I'll find out more about early next week.

Charis

 

[Sirian]

There are two phases to AI performance in civ3: there is the expansion phase, and there is the warmongering phase. For the most part, expansion is always finished by the industrial age, so the AI's have nothing left to do but attack one another, or you. I have (rarely) seen games in which the AI's maintain peace for an extended period -- or else had only phony wars with distant rivals -- and mostly or entirely stayed in representative governments. War Weariness is the real AI buster. They go all out in their wars and collapse from weariness rather quickly once they engage. They also clearly do not maximize use of the FP, nor even manage it usefully at all, so once the player gets his online, corruption works TO THE PLAYER'S ADVANTAGE, presuming that player is at all skilled with corruption management.

Wanting the game to be balanced start to finish is fine and dandy, but just doesn't match the reality. You can have either a fun and balanced (and interesting) ancient-midieval period, followed by AI collapse, or give the AI massive advantages so they race race race ahead in all categories, then play the catch up game and have an interesting late game on your hands.

Those are the two options.

I have found Deity to be surprisingly entertaining, once embracing and accepting the notion that I'm going to be wholly pulverized in the early game, treading lightly and trying just to avoid annihilation as I work slowly to make up ground and build my strength. The AI's are still weak tactically, but on Deity they can replace their losses so quickly, they actually DO remain a viable threat all the way to the end. This is more true in the latest patch than ever, because the AI's now upgrade their units, and it is quite a task to go wipe out an AI who has 170 mech infantry, 30 artillery, and 30 to 60 modern armor. I have been able to reach a clearly victorious position in that Deity game I showed the graph from, but only by waiting to catch up in power and production, then limiting myself to one main front at a time, artfully manipulating the diplomatic angles to only have to face one strong opponent at a time. I -could have- misstepped and been run over, and even then I would have had major troubles if the AI moved in stacks of 20 and 30 modern armor at one time, or hit me with nukes before I was ready to deal with them. I reached the tech LEAD at Nuclear Power, and was the first to research the following techs, in this order: Miniaturization, Genetics, Recycling, Sattelites, Nuclear Power, Laser, Smart Weapons, Integrated Defense. Of course, even at war and isolated from one another, the AI's are still just one or two techs behind. I reached number one on the power graph two turns AFTER I completed my Strategic Missile Defense wonder. I have been pleasantly surprised at the AIs' ability to remain competitive. I also had a devil of time with lacking resources, and walked on eggshells for many many turns.


If you are wanting ancient warfare, emperor and deity are not the place for it. Those levels are specifically designed to give the AI's massive advantages. Monarch is actually fun and balanced for ancient warfare, presuming you play it straight, don't bet your whole game on risky gambits, and eschew the loopholes. Most of the emperor/deity ancient conquest players are massively bent toward exploiting every available loophole, in this case, the poprush worker camps.

I expect LOTR2 to be fun and quite challenging, and that sounds about like you are aiming for with this. Deity, by definition, is a "cling to life, wait for your chance" scenerio.

It just seems to me that players are spinning their wheels to yearn for human-quality opposition from the AI's. The AI is pretty clever, and relatively speaking, very capable. However, no amount of improvement is going to put it on par with the human player, particularly once the variables increase exponentially with the arrival of rails, the expansion past corruption limits, and the advent of modern units and improvements. If you want a fun early game, play at Monarch and accept that the game is over when it gets to Industrial. If you want a late game challenge, play Deity, or play Emperor with bad lands, bad luck, or variant handicaps.

I'm personally enjoying the PLAYING of the games. I have fun managing lands, workers, dotmaps, build orders, and tactically, "making do" to fit each situation as best I can. My suggestion would be to forsake the "must prevent AI's from advancing in tech" concept, and just focus on ancient warfare. HALT research after invention on the one line, and after navigation on the other, and then just keep cranking units and attacking/defending. Emperor, it would be doable, especially on smaller maps as you prefer, where you can take it to the enemy before they have time to get all the way to cavalry and rifles. I suggest you just try it straight up first, and see how that plays, then design variant restrictions to taste.

I'm afraid I need to bow out either way, though. I would have joined this one, but LOTR2 is similar and I already committed there. I'm cutting back a little on my SG load to make room for RBCiv tournament design and activity, which is in the works, and currently waiting on Charis to dig out of his holes, which are even deeper than mine. Whatever you guys decide to do with this one, give em Hell. :shottie:


- Sirian

 

[Zed-F]

The focus is definately on Ancient & Middle Ages war (particularily middle ages with Riders.) I'm not going to pump up the difficulty to a level that will compromise that objective; however, Monarch seems to be a "been there, done that" proposition. We KNOW we can win on Monarch, no questions asked, regardless of how bad our start is; I'm more interested in exploring the boundaries of what is possible. That leaves us with Emperor. Given our performance in RBD4, RBD2, and RBD6, it seems possible, if we go in knowing that war is our goal. And, as you say, a smaller map makes it a bit easier.

We also have a bit of an advantage relative to our usual infrastructure build order, in that we know we will never need certain improvements we would normally not consider going without, such as libraries and universities. We would almost certainly never research anything once the GL is built, and only buy critical techs that the GL didn't provide us. (We probably would want to get Banking & Economics for Wall Street eventually, however.) Moreover, we had a less than perfect start in RBD4, with generally poor lands, close neighbors, and no reasonable early FP site available, and were able to overcome it despite a general lack of preparedness for war. So, I'm not convinced that a lucky start is a make-or-break proposition for an Emperor-level conquest game.

Also note I'm not saying the game must be over by the time we get to the Industrial era, but that we should be in a dominant position by then. If we need a bit more time to wrap things up, that's not a problem. Consider that once we hit Monotheism, there are really no new city improvements we want to build after that point (except possibly Banks.) I envision we would be spending most of the Ancient era building up and focussing on infrastructure, and then breaking out once we hit Chivalry. That leaves us with almost the entire Middle Ages to pump out units and prosecute war. Moreover, with skillful diplomatic manipulation, we should be able to both delay the AIs research by toppling their republics & democracies, as well as get them to gang up on the biggest boy on the block and "lower the bar" for us to be the dominant civ. We will be raking in a lot of money; if we aren't going to use it to buy a lot of tech, we should have enough available for lots of diplomatic shenanigans.

Anyway, it should be a good challenge, but doable I think. We'll see how much interest there is; if not enough, I'll simply postpone it.

 

[Jaffa Tamarin]

Going to have to skip this one. Too many games ongoing

 

[Arathorn]

I'm gonna have to pass on this one, too.

At some point, I would be interested in trying a domination-determined deity SG, but I've got a few too many irons in the fire right now anyway. Maybe later.

Arathorn

P.S. I disagree with Sirian. One can effectively wage war in deity in the ancient age. It's hard -- and even harder with 1.17, but it can definitely be done. As for putting two wonders down in a deity game -- it is to laugh! I've gotten two ancient age wonders on deity, but only with two great leaders. And that was 1.16 with nearly immortal fast units.