RBtS 10 - Gandhi the Giver

[T-hawk]

How exactly are we planning to "just defend" ? The stack that captured Vijay has 38 modern armors. Isabella ("best rival") has more than TEN TIMES our power. I think our best chance is to pray for a UN "Stop the War" resolution.

Problem 2: Slavery and Caste are both locked out by UN Emancipation.

Problem 3: Beware of the 19 Paratroopers in Seville!

Hmm...you know I really like this idea, how much culture does the mission add? Basically regoarrarr have been chatting, and we differ on what should be the "main" plan.

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=286229

The amount of culture added by the mission is always 5% of the total of all the current CCs from all players (including yourself).

We don't know exactly how much culture Seville has, but if it's 10k, then each spy spreads 500.

Once you’ve built up the CC of a target city it also counts as a virtual “source” of your culture ... you can increase the CC of an enemy owned city using the Spread Culture mission. In that way you can construct a chain of cities deep into enemy culture. If enemy cities are 3 tiles apart you need 500 CC to bridge the gap.

Wow! Based on that, forget the Great Artist! We would need just 1 spy mission in Seville to make Pamplona a legal target, and then not many (maybe 5) missions in Pamplona to make Madrid a legal target. Don't even need to capture Seville and Pamplona. The cost is 3 EP per culture then discounts apply, so it will cost less than 2000 EP total.

I favor all out military and raze Madrid using a Great Artist. I like it because Madrid is a culture city and it kills all the spaceship progress, even if she is able to launch. If we focus on this we need Caste System AND Slavery, thank goodness we are PHI.

From a "win the game" perspective, I definitely favor all out military to raze Madrid, if we can even survive. Then we can take plenty of time to build the spaceship. However it strikes me as very loopholey compared to our variant, the intent was to win with the Giving ruleset without conquering. You're the captain so this is your call.

I suppose attacking Madrid would make us Gandhi the Indian Giver.

 

[darrelljs]

Well the intent of the rule was mostly to keep us from getting too big. It ruined the thief economy game and made things a cake walk. So I have no qualms in using a cheesy game mechanic to raze Madrid . It will be interesting to see if the AI incompetence will allow us to do so.

Darrell

 

[darrelljs]

Darrell

 

[regoarrarr]

Ah well it was a good ride. And at least we can all (except darrell) say that at least the loss wasn't on our watch

So what's next?

 

[T-hawk]

Wait, what happened in 1923 AD? You got a random event with a possibility for peace and didn't take it?

Anyway, yes, good show everybody. This reminds me of the Japanese economy stagnation game at RB - be careful about how many variants are piled on together. We had no fewer than five: giving away our techs and resources, no tech trading, no stealing, no conquering, and Immortal difficulty. Any one or two of those factors is no big deal. Even any three or four would be a challenging but playable variant. We just went a bit too far on the self-handicaps.

And yet... we still almost won. Seriously, take away any single one of those variant factors and we do win. Emperor difficulty would have been completely winnable, and so would have been the same game with tech trading or stealing. Allow conquering, and we jump in on Isabella's side against Shaka and Bull, securing more land for ourselves, earning diplo credit with Isabella, and keeping Isabella from a diplomation victory (and avoiding the fatal WHEOOH, which came while we were flipped to Islam in order to bonk Ramesses into it to avoid him voting for Izzy.)

You can only find out how far you can reach by finding something beyond it.

That all said, I'm not sure we learned anything new about game mechanics or strategy, since Civ 4 is so well understood by now. On high difficulty, you adopt the religion of the largest number of your neighbors and use that to stay safe from attack. Settle towards the AIs to block them since they're not smart enough to punish an undefended city. The single biggest economic multiplier is tech trading. Super-specialist economy with the Great Library works great early for a Philo civ, then transition to cottages with all the trimmings and boosters. Espionage allows lots of tricks and traps. All these are well known by now, and our game was a great example of applying them (or what happens with the lack of them in tech trading.)

It almost feels like this was Civ 4's final exam. You know the subject material, now fill in the answers. Take the summer off and graduate to a new course come September.

 

[mostly-harmless]

Although, I was not posting I was following the progress or lack of. Anyway, good gamer everyone. But I think this was the last SG Civ4 game for me. Excitement and time effort just don't balance anymore.

mh

 

[darrelljs]

Wait, what happened in 1923 AD? You got a random event with a possibility for peace and didn't take it?

Yeah, she had already launched though and I was trying to see if there was a way to save a mainland city just for pride's sake .

I'd add a sixth variant...our lousy land . Delhi was a prime spot of course, as was Bombay even though it lacked fresh water. In fact, outside the few river tiles at Delhi we had NO fresh water and a lot of plains/tundra tiles. That hurt us quite a bit. We still could have won if Isabella had been a good girl and shut down tech to go for culture .

Sorry to lose you mh...I'd play another SG, if only to not go out with a loss. I'd insist on a strict 24/48 this time though .

Darrell

 

[sunrise089]

Yeah, she had already launched though and I was trying to see if there was a way to save a mainland city just for pride's sake .

I'd add a sixth variant...our lousy land . Delhi was a prime spot of course, as was Bombay even though it lacked fresh water. In fact, outside the few river tiles at Delhi we had NO fresh water and a lot of plains/tundra tiles. That hurt us quite a bit. We still could have won if Isabella had been a good girl and shut down tech to go for culture .

Sorry to lose you mh...I'd play another SG, if only to not go out with a loss. I'd insist on a strict 24/48 this time though .

Darrell

I'm out then

Turn report for baby coming soon...

 

[sunrise089]

Baby turn report

T1 (6/21) - Wake up for work early since I want to get some stuff done before my boss makes it into the office. Walk downstairs, wife is putting the carseat we washed back together and shows me how it works. I jokingly ask if this is a sign things are getting close, and she responds "pretty much, I think my water just broke." We plan to go to hospital when the contractions get close together...that doesn't happen.

T2 (6/22) - With contractions still not happening regularly we go to the hospital anyways. The hospital treated us great overall, but it did take about eight hours to finally believe that the wife was really ready (they thought her water had not broke) and then induce her.

T3 (6/23) - 18 hours after being induced Liberty (no middle name) is born. Baby girl, 6lb 13oz, 19in. Civ joke would be something like either a city planted, colony spun off, or a vassal emerging, right?

T5 (6/25) - Bring mother and baby home from the hospital. Fire up the RB forums for the first time since Monday. My longest break since....my honeymoon?

Pics (in a sunrise SG report?!) -