The final diplomatic struggle... The UN was within sight, would this
be a final solution to world peace, brought about by the ONE great civilization
that had ne'er soiled itself with the stain of war?!?
I must start off with some comments on the wonder prediction. With three
turns to go on Fission and seven more to finish building, we'll likely get
the UN in 10 turns, or 1770 AD. I'm within 7 turns, which is almost exactly
what the tech savings was from our opponents researching Flight. My number
was 'conservative' meaning "no later than". I debated whether to assume Flight
could be bought in less turns that it took us to research. In retrospect that
would have been smarter, *and* gives you the option of "slowing" building by
shifting the workers off shields. Running max shields you can do no further
to speed it up.
Maybe the chuckling or call as 'fantasy' is in differing expectations
Trying to time it within a few turns, maybe. MAYBE. Trying to time it to the
precise turn, without going over, that's a task.
Well, ya
I had no expectation it would be correct to the turn, but was just
trying to show two things: i) 'doing the math' on shields and turns and tech to
answer the question "what city to build in" and "when to start pre-building" are
good questions, and ii) using the shield production 'range' to your advantage.
I didn't do well on the latter, because the estimate was maximally conservative
and the shield rates were maximum. Assuming some time would be cut on flight and
starting the prebuild earlier is what I should have suggested, since you can take
some workers off the max-shield cities to slow rates if needed. I also should
have pointed out it's not a static estimate, but a dynamic one that accounts for
new information.
Let me try an example: you have a wonder coming up that with your 'normal' max
shield rate would take 30 turns to build it, when do you start prebuilding?
Although an 'exact' turn is fantasy, it's either a stab in the dark, or you
don't prebuild, or you start so late you jeopardize being beat. I would look at
how many turns to get the tech and build it. Say it's currently 35-60 turns
(35 if things go well and you can buy a key tech from AI, 60 if not).
How much can you slow down shield production and not starve? If it's a MUST have
wonder and you expect tough competition from the AI, you start right now. If
it's a 'keeper' but you don't want to start so early you lose 20 turns of
productive output... you might start prebuilding in about 10 turns. Turns to the
tech then are 25-50, turns to build enough shields: 30-60. As time goes on both
of these ranges narrow, and you adjust shield production if needed. These values
may in ten turns become: tech in 20-35, finish build in 20-40. Then in 15 more
turns you see it will take 10 more turns to get the tech, and slow down shields
just a bit to finish the build in 11. The shield shifting is dynamic, and the
prediciton changing, but you can't get around 'when' to start the prebuild.
Either you 'wing it' or make an educated guess.
: : Charis the engineer gets off his soapbox, having already said more than
he needed to without shedding too much more light on the subject
Future era races are so different anyway, I mean, sheesh, from time you get
tech to finishing a big shield wonder is only 7 turns.
1750 AD (0) - Wow, we DID have aluminum! (And (cough) oil til by not
using it we used it all up (cough)) Treasury over 30K.
And we're building cruise missilse and flying air-CAP superiority
missions!?!
We've come a long way baby!
1752 AD (1) - Ouch, just in time for a victory, that was quite a long time
for invisible intra-turn AI battles.
1754 AD (2) - Zulu and Roma ally against Japan, the Zulu declare war.
Greece and Iroquois sign peace treaty, as do Aztecs and Egypt.
1756 AD (3) - The World learns how to split the atom! Fissino has arrived!
Fidel declares the world is in desperate need of a permanent solution for
world peace and humbly suggest the formation of the United Nations!!
Do we have any Uranium? NO Who does? No clue, it doesn't glow in the
dark quite enough for us to see it
On a lesser note, China has discovered the secret of Amphibious Warfare.
(The neighborhood watch patrols take note!) We start computers, not that
it should matter... We also start a few SAM missle batteries (heck, we
ARE Cuba) Ur is put on Battlefield Med placeholder for Seti. I kick back
back shields to make it due in 11, since tech is due in 10. (-500 gold per
turn deficit? Not a problem!)
1758 AD (4) - Russia and Aztecs call for a truce, and agree to meet in a few
short turns at the upcoming inaugural UN summit.
1762 AD (6) - Japan and Rome, Zulus and Egypt get wind of the upcomming summit
and call a truce.
1764 AD (7) - England and Greece do not hear, they ally vs China and declare.
Egypt declares war vs China. We lose our Greek Ivory. We were getting it
for only 6 gpt?? Now it's lump 1250 gold@diplo.
Nasty minor bug!! With "Confirm production after build unit" and "Always
build last unit built", the latter overrides is causing new problems.
I check cities and see we're making 5 ships (!!!!!!) Huh??? I sure didn't
set them. I wasn't prompted for them. Well in all cities where we finished
a tank, oil was no longer available and it *quiet* chose to build ironclads
and galleys. Next turn I turn off "same unit" and sure enough, I get a
"Finished tank, build a... Ironclad?" popup dialog.
The governors are found and shot!
More wars and rumors of wars. Can longer keep track, it's a ZOO out there!
1768 AD (9) - Drumroll please... United Nations is due next turn!
[dance]
We hereby bequeath to ...
... Russia. The gift of Electronics.
... Japan. The gift of Refining.
... Aztecs. A grand! (1000 cash)
... Cleo. The gift of Electronics. No wait, she counters with "then I just MUST
share with you the knowledge of amphibious warfare." Well, ok, Cleo, but
please, I insist, take this freewill gift of 500 gold as a love offering!
... Zulus. 1000 gold
... Iroquois. Knowledge of Refining.
... China, and Rome, and Germany ... 1000 gold.
... our buddy Alex... 1000 gold.
(The only tech they don't all have listed is motorized transport, which
means no future techs either).
[TWO SAVE FILES - One is Pre-suck up, the other is end of turn with all this
diplo. Run the latter, hit return on production choices, then do the vote]
1770 AD (10) - Finally, the year of the big summit!! No less than 5 pop ups
to announce various alliances and peace treaties and such...
A vote is called for at the sacred chambers of the United Nations.
our good friend Chairman Mao is listed on the ballot, but truly, the
hearts of the people point all to one direction... Cuba!!!
"Nosotros queremos el Presidente Fidel Charis Sirian Castro de Cuba!!!!"
There is brief outrage that the vote was NOT unanimous, after *ALL* we did
for these people!!!
Our good and respected friends, Catherine, Tokogawa, Cleopatra, Shaka,
Caesar, Alexander, and yes... Bismarck, vote for... CASTRO!!! (As do we)
The following treaturous slaughterers of babies and opponents to all that is
just and good, somehow are listed as voting for Mao !!!
China, Montezuma of the villainous Aztec people, the rebellious and two-faced
Hiawatha. We put in a protest that he tried to bribe these native americans
against the born leader of the Western Hemisphere (actually, I went back and
looked to see if they were mid-alliance. There were too many civs to see -
Aztecs and China had no alliance, but China WAS at war against almost all who
voted against him. Did our kindness have THAT little impact that it really
came down to- who was #1 fighting at the time of vote??). But in any case...
Secretary General of the UN Castro declares world peace and victory!!!
[dance]
Shaka sends a plate of hero cookies, and poor Elizabeth... wants to go again!
Top five cities are Thebes(26), Beijing(21), ur(21), Tlatelolco(19), and
little Athens(9). We were ranked first in approval rating and Literacy,
No.2 in GNP, Mfg Good, life expectancy, and ... Mil Service! Hehe.
No.3 in income and population (!) Score-wise, we actually shot up to second
slot behind China. 3326 vs their 4038. We could certainly of artifically
pumped that a lot higher. Our next nearest competetors were Greece at 2854
and Egypt at 2512.
History will remember us as...
Castro the Magnificent!!!
Hot dang, not bad for first real
emperor game! The score is just a touch behind rbd1, a good bit behind
rbd2, and higher than almost all of my solo games.
Epilogue...
Sirian, you mentioned trying to see just how well we might be able to
do by pure aeriel and paratrooper conquest. That's an *extremely* interesting
question, but one majorly hampered by the AI-turn time factor. These turns
are outrageously long on my machine, a 1.2 gig P4 with 1/2 gig ram. Ugh!
I don't think I would be able to go long enough to see much doing that.
Since even before the game began, I intended this as a "repeat" game,
go around the first time just as we did and seeing none of the map at all.
Then second go around, switch from "isolationist" mode to "Superstitious
Communists". Up til about 1500 that was still looking very good, but now
the time-factor of turn length past 1750 may crush the idea. The variant
rules laid out would turn it into a space race, with no settling off the
original continent, although naval and aerial invasions with razing ok.
It wouldn't be sufficiently different from this game, and would lead to
a reeeeealy slow ending due to the map size. Boo...
If you or anyone else press on a bit to test an air war, do post your
results!
If you look over the map and the replay, it's very interesting. Actually
though if you think about it, no surprises. One country kicked butt (China)
and one got eliminated early on, while no one else got eliminated.
Well only ONE continent was shared by two civs: China and England.
The relative strength of each civ at the end was almost 100% correlated
with their land mass area. We had a very average rock in size, and slightly
but not horribly worse than the others. Egypt may have had the best
"solo" continent for size and terrain. Greece had a good one too.
Germany was lucky in that the island next to us was uncontested by us.
(It's not their homeland, btw)
Thanks for the game, very well done! I think we could have done far worse
and still gotten the UN victory, given our big lead at the end and our
financial dominance, but I had a real sense of "executing" extremely well,
making the best out of what we got and squeezing blood from our turnip
Charis
I *KNEW* I saw something somewhere about dequeueing, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was...
). Maybe if I can finish some of these games I'm in I'll join the next evil plot that RBD is offering.
