Replay #4 Slow and steady wins the race

[Quibblesome]

Well you've certainly answered the question I asked earlier about Sushi!

 

[Seraiel]

An era finds its end - The last Crusade of the egyptian Cuirrassiers!


The last episode was about crazy expansioin, the foundation of Sushi, economical recovery, all very very important for the highscore, but not that important for the heart of a player like me, a heart longing for blood O_o *lol* .

So I won't let you wait any longer, here comes the last war for a very long time, it's: Ramesses vs Darius!

Before we come to the plan, the answer to the question: Why Darius?

To understand that, we have to take a look at the map and get info on the targets techs:

As you see, I got shared Borders with Viccy, Wang Kon, Hammurabi and Darius, so basically, those are all possible targets. Anyhow, Maintenance plays a huge role on Huge map, Darius cities are the closest ones, and I got very large borders with him, therefor, can attack him easily from multiple sides, which is awesome in a Blitzkrieg.

Still, the decision whom to attack is made by the power the targets have and their technological lvl, therefor, I've marked the scoreboard with a red-square:
On it you can clearly see, that Hammurabi is a global player. He has Frederick and Brennus as Vassals, therefor, he wouldn't give up easily but I would find myself in a long lasting war against hoards of troops. His espionage against me is so high, that I cannot even see his power-rating, I can only see the one of Frederick, and that is already 1.4 to mine. Knowing, that peacevassals long for a power-rating of about 1.6 times of the master compared to their power-rating, I know, that Hammu must have a ton of units. Doesn't matter if they are mostly obsolete, we all know, in Civ IV, Spear > Tank.
Then comes Viccy, someone whom I'd like to have taken out of the game at that point, but Viccy has Redcoats, and her empire lies far away from my Palace, two reasons speaking against it. I don't say that I could not have DoWed and conquered her easily, I bribed her against Lincoln, she really has other problems atm. as Lincoln even conquered a city with his obsolete units. In hindsight I know, that she would have been the right decision, as I'm going to loose all the Hit- Wonders (Broadway, Hollywood and Rock'n'Roll to her and I'm even going to miss the Eiffel Tower, all things that would have eased my upcoming Happiness-problems because of still running Slavery) to her, but I didn't wanna fight anyone having Rifles and a military quotient near mine (this also counts for WK) , when there was a juicy target like Darius, having only 1.4 of my power, and then only having obsolet units, meaning Muskets, no Rifles, even no Cuirrassiers!

I guess Darius felt safe between his buddhists friends Hammurabi and me, but there are times, when friends cannot be friends anymore, Darius was underdeveloped, he always teched the wrong things, he didn't pay attention to his military, which we will see in the following screen, where I scouted him with my Armada of Airships, he didn't want to trade with me anymore because of my Vassals, so what follows is his own fault!

You see 7 marked cities and the military in them. Mainly Longbows, some Pikes, a few Muskets and others, all Forces, that I can destroy without any problems, having an Elite Force of highly promoted Cuirrassiers and having Cavalries since some turns.

Say hello to the 3 Generals that are leading this war:

Those are my Fightas! Surprised, aren't'ya? Instead of making a 3rd Supermedic, I made a fast Super-Defender with the GG I still had from the war against Lizzy! I like Super-Defenders very much, especially if one already has some highly promoted Supermedics, because normally (or when it still matters) one cannot make more than 2 Stacks, and often, one finds onesself in a counter-attack where the mostly offensive units suffer severe losses. This wasn't the case at this point of the round, but just imagine what would have happened if Viccy would have DoWed me, that Grenadier, which would be a Machine Gun in near time, would hold of at least 10 attacking troops on itself, and he'd lvl so fast, that he could do that almost every turn of a war, he's a machine!

Lord of Ultima and Ultralord both have their own Taskforces, while The Wall is his own Taskforce in this war, here is the plan:

Now calm down, this is easy to understand, you know all the different lines already from the last war. The straight lines are the attack-paths of the Cuirrs and Cavs, the zic-zag lines mean Air-Support and new is the intermittend line, that line means "Defend cities and hold the line here" . XD
3 Generals mean 3 Task-Forces, Ultralord leads the one in the North, that one is going to split up and attack Sardis and Gordium on T1 of the war. The split forces meet up in Ecbatana and conquer the city together again. After that, they split up again, half goes to Pasargadae, and the other half meets with Lord of Ultimas Taskforce and conquers Persepolis.
Lord of Ultima, coming from the west, shall conquer Tarsus also on T1 of the war, and after having gotten Reinforcements in Persepolis, Susa shall fall only short after Pasargadae. In the meantime, The Wall will defend any city in the southwest, should Darius decide for a counter-attack.
The Air-Support has to be restationed during the war, this will happen after Tarsus and Ecbatana have fallen, while the troops are still healing or proceeding to their next target.

Got it?

^^



I guess after this, you now wanna know how this plan played out: In 640 AD, I declare war on Darius!


Everything happens according to the plan: All Taskforces are able to fulfill their duties, Tarsus, Sardis and Gordium fall. The Air-Bombardement was so hard this time (I had a lot more Airships than in the war against Lizzy) , that no Cuirr / Cav has to fight any low-% fights. I'm very unlucky though and lose 4 Cavs in 90%+ fights . Yes, ontop of the Emancipation Unhappiness, I now also have War Weariness, which is no big deal, except that i have to micro all cities again . Anyhow, I shoot Darius to 52 War Weariness on T1, here is a Screen for you:

You see the Cuirrs and Cavs are spread wide out, this is, because I conquered a ton of Workers on that turn. 1 Cuirr, being a Commando Cuirrassier also stinged deep into Darius Territory, capturing another one. This is good, because I really built very few Workers during that round, before capturing the ones from Darius, I had only 40 for 80+ cities which is managable if one doesn't have to change too many improvements and has so many island cities like I had in that round.
I marked some other things on the Screen, because they're important and I always forget them: I used my begging-tactic again, so not begging 30 turns before the war, and then begging everyone for little money, getting peace-treaties in exchange. The only ones I needed those from are Mansa and Asoka, because those could backstab me, Viccy, I don't have to fear because I convinced her that fighting against Lincoln would be a good idea, and all others cannot be bribed while I have them on pleased.
Just FYI: Without making a note about it, I've switched to Nationhood in the meantime, because Burocracy only rules if one is able to run 100% Research.


On T2 of the war, Ecbatana falls to the Commando Cuirrassier and the 3 movement-points Generals. It had 3 defenders, but got bombarded from the air harshly and the troops had no Chance against the combined power of Lord of Ultima and Ultralord XD . This fastens up the war greatly as all troops can now proceed through a narrow corridor directly to Ecbatana:

Some troops are even already threatening Persepolis, although it's only T2 of the war! This is Ultimate Ultra Blitzkrieg XD . Also: A GG arises, I use him to build a Military Academy in the HE-City of Ahmedabad:

On that screen, you can also see, that I founded another Quetschstadt ("Squeezed City") north of Ahmedabad. This is not the only one I founded, everywhere where there is place to build another city, I'm building one. This is very important, if one tries to maximise the highscore, one really has to maximise the cities, and with Corporations, every city is awesome, doesn't matter if it has only 9 tiles to work, it can still grow to size 30 and contribute greatly to the points, and with Mining Inc, have also an incredible production.


After a fast initial phase of the war, the troops now have to heal, and Persepolis is a heavily defended fortress, where Darius is making his last stand:

Some Cuirrassiers have high courage and attack the Pikeman, that could hide from the Air Bombardement, in it:

4 of them die to various defenders, but another 4 are able to kill some defenders of it, this battle is going to last for more than 1 round. This was on T4 of the war, total losses until now: 8.


On T5 of the war (660 AD) the attack on Persepolis goes into its second round, more and more Cuirrs and Cavs have arrived and attack the city:

They kill 13 defenders without having a single loss, even though some of the attackers are wounded! Anyhow, the city still doesn't fall.


It's gonna take until T6 (665 AD) until Persepolis is finally in the hands of the overly powerful yellow egyptian empire!

Unbelievably enough, but Darius still isn't willing to capitulate! I'm far beyond 40 War Success, his military is crippled, he has a military quotient of 2.6 and a War Weariness of 128. Guess he thinks "my Vassal Saladin is going to turn this around" *lol* .


But on T7 (670 AD) , the Blitz strikes again! A handful of former War Chariots, now Elite Cuirrassiers have learned how to use the mined roads without being killed (Commando-promotion) , and in a devastating attack, they conquer Susa only 1 turn after Persepolis has fallen!

Finally Darius has a realization, he notices that Salladin won't turn this around, and he knowing, that he'd also loose Pasargadae on the next turn, he's is willing to capitulate! I accept, because I think that I can still need him. With 10 cities and with being one of the best techers of the game, he could research some techs for me. Main reason to accept his Capitulation though is, that he's willing to give me a city having 2 Ressources of Silver, which is extremely rare on this map, and that I'm having serious problems with Unhappiness, because my women are crying about their lost men, and they're crying even harder, because they still have no rights in my empire, they demand Emancipation heavily. In some cities, they're already demonstrating, even though the Government mixed Incence in the water XD (+7 Unhappiness from not running Emancipation and that plus the War Weariness and +7-8 whipping Anger = Unhappy Citizens) .

Even the Civ-God approaches Deity Ramesses, "You're evil, you don't give your women any rights" , she says. "Wait, I have a solution to that" answers Ramesses, "I just have to slave harder, a Market here, another one there, see, all women are happy again!" XD .


With the Markets and not having the War Weariness, my cities are happy again, for the moment, so there's no reason to accept a Vassalage from Salladin, who is not as stubborn as Darius and willing to capitulate from the first moment onwards. Bad luck for him, but his kind will be assimilated and join the yellow egyptian empire as ours.
Here is a clearview of his 3 cities:

That are very nice cities, Coal (Mining Inc) and 3 Sushi-Ressources plus Oil, no way I'm gonna let him live :> . Of course, he has the Rifles that Darius didn't have *lol* .


In 680 AD, something very funny and not so funny happens. Remember that I'm still leader of the AP? Well, the AP decides to whom a city belongs after the culture in it, and Sushi, as you know, produces insane culture, I get this vote:

Of course I want the city of Cahokia, it has a Uranium-Ressource and Uranium is awesome to trade for Sushi / Mining Ressources, one gets everything for it. Cahokia is surrounded by egyptian Culture and has only a few tiles left to work, but what does Lizzy do? She defies!
What is she for a leader plz? Her cities were already having severe Happiness-problems, only my Ressources were saving her population from starvation... Now all I can do is, gift her every Ressource that I can spare, because I need her to research Electricity for me, but it's not enough, all her cities starve by 2-3 points, zomg. -.-


But coming back to the war against Salladin, that one is only of little strategic value. It's basically "ship over enough Cuirrs / Cavs to own that god-damn CG3-Rifle, and after that, it's hard GG-Ownage. It's gonna take until 720 AD until I've conquered all of his cities. More interesting: Lord of Ultima reaches lvl 10!

You see that right, that's a lvl 10 Supermedic that has 90% Withdrawl chance *lol* . Too bad, that I'm at 30% of the total land and really have to watch out now. I won every other Sushi-round I've played up to this point too early, because I wasn't aware of all the Culture-Flips that would happen. This is not going to happen in this round. You may already have suspected this, because I took so many Vassals, but in this round I'm gonna go for Space-Colony-Victory! You now know it.


----------------------


Next episode is called: "1 turn 1 hour!"

Make sure to follow that one too, till then, cya,

Seraiel

 

[Seraiel]

Really enjoying this

Me 2 Thx

I get so happy when my subscriptions list shows a new post in this thread from you, and I always hope it's a new update.

I really want to play a sushi game now.

That's a really big compliment, thx^2!

Play a Sushi-game, they're really fun (until Sushi at least ^^) .

Well you've certainly answered the question I asked earlier about Sushi!

You now know about the power of Sushi on Big & Small mapscript?

Sera

 

[vranasm]

and now my dear friends we all can see why Germany had so much success in first 3 years of WW II.

Wanted to say couple of things ;-)

1) One nice trick (you could try) I saw AZ doing, when he does trades with his vassals (and mostly giving them techs), is asking to stop the vassal trade with someone. It has short term effect for sure mostly, but you never know and you sometimes can achieve the vassal not trading the tech away

2) I am almost 100% sure the Saladdin had to break away from Darius before the capitulations, you maybe just didn't see it

3) Corps normally are not so strong as in this type of map ;-)

 

[Seraiel]

and now my dear friends we all can see why Germany had so much success in first 3 years of WW II.

Wanted to say couple of things ;-)

1) One nice trick (you could try) I saw AZ doing, when he does trades with his vassals (and mostly giving them techs), is asking to stop the vassal trade with someone. It has short term effect for sure mostly, but you never know and you sometimes can achieve the vassal not trading the tech away

2) I am almost 100% sure the Saladdin had to break away from Darius before the capitulations, you maybe just didn't see it

3) Corps normally are not so strong as in this type of map ;-)

Hi Vranasm

Yes, Germany was so successful in the first three years of WW II, because they had me . After the first 3 years I got bored though, time-traveled to now, and began playing Civ .

Ad 1.: That's no trick tbh, that's a simple embargo, giving Diplo-hits I don't want, because I need good diplomatic relations to get the Sushi-ressources. I will exactly ask one Vassal during this complete round to stop trading with someone, because I need a specific Ressource that's rare (Deer) and she's the one getting it from him. It's the same with bribes, one has to use them only when one is absolutely sure that they will be of great benefit and that one still has good relations afterwards (bribing Viccy against Lincoln i. e. = no problem because I will get Emancipation favourite civic bonus with him) .

Ad. 2.: Salladin didn't break free, why should he, he was a liberated overseas colony, he loves his master. You can see that on the last screenshot after I've taken Susa, Salladin is still the Vassal from Darius. He broke free after Darius capitulated.

Ad. 3.: Because of that I wrote "The power of Sushi on Big & Small mapscript"

Regards, Sera

 

[georgjorge]

From T-Hawks game I seem to remember that he did very little conquest beyond the initial rush and even gave back a number of land cities so he wouldn't trigger domination. It's interesting that you chose a different route of steady warfare - are you planning to give those cities back as well? And what are the vassals for - mainly the ressource trades or the teching? Or are you mainly trying to eliminate possible rivals for a space victory?

Anyway, great writing as always...

 

[Trapper439]

As a player who has only had a few wins on Emperor, I'm struggling to get my head around this. Fantastic play, and a great write-up. Very educational.

I particularly liked the way that your population increased by 750% in 100 years after Sushi came online. I remember in older Civ games the Demographics screen included an "Average Number of Children per Family" statistic. It would be very interesting to see how big a number that would be in this case, as the Eqyptian people were obviously breeding like rabbits.

Am I the only one thinking that Sid's Sushi Co must be secretly lacing their products with aphrodisiacs?

Average day in the life of an Egytian:

Work
Pick up some Sushi on the way home
Eat Sushi
Make babies

 

[Sabertooth]

In all the years I've spent playing civ and reading these boards I've never seen a game even remotely like this one. You're incredible, Seraiel.

I wonder if I can back up to your previous update and ask a question. I don't understand how you whip -- that is to say, the means by which you decide, ”I should whip this city now.” I think my civ ability is hampered by the fact that I've never mastered the whip, and my whipping is rather conservative. But I've always found that whipping too hard cripples my development in the long run, so I'm always trying to work my city at close to max pop and avoid whipping away more than two or three citizens at a time. I always wait until that unhappiness wears off before my next whip, and seldom/never build up the whip timer. I'm looking at some of your cities and as you note yourself, you've whipped to such an extent that you have 200 turns of unhapppiness on the timer. That means you must have whipped 7 or 8 consecutive (or nearly consecutive) rounds, and that the city's unhappiness is at -7 or maybe -8 (you say as much above in your discussion of war weariness).

Take a city with a happiness limit of 15; -7 unhappiness means it can only work 8 tiles, and is effectively half as large and productive as it otherwise would be at full population. You're stuck waiting at least 30 turns before you can effectively increase your working population by a single point. But with Sushi your cities are increasing their size every two or three rounds. I can't seem to get this equation to balance – how do you do it?

 

[Seraiel]

From T-Hawks game I seem to remember that he did very little conquest beyond the initial rush and even gave back a number of land cities so he wouldn't trigger domination. It's interesting that you chose a different route of steady warfare - are you planning to give those cities back as well? And what are the vassals for - mainly the ressource trades or the teching? Or are you mainly trying to eliminate possible rivals for a space victory?

Anyway, great writing as always...

2 things:

1. T-Hawk and I go the same way, we aim for maximum cities / maximum population. The difference is, that he was playing a much smaller map, the one I played was Huge, his was standart iirc. Therefor, he was close to domination after the initial rush, while I had to be in constant warfare for almost 3000 years for that .
2. Vassalizing the Civs was because WastinTime said Vassals are good for a Space-colony-victory. It's basically like this: If a game is really good, one can choose the Victory one wants. I could have gone for Culture, but then, I should have played Hatty and would have had to whip a lot of temples costing a lot of population. I could have gone for Domination, but the top-Domination game is 500 BC by Kovacsflo. Conquest is almost impossible on a Huge B&S map, but maybe I'll try by some time. Would have ment though, that I would have lost many Sushi-Ressources because I'd have had to annihilate the others without being able to take the land myself because of triggering Domination. Therefor, and because I never had Mining Inc and wanted to see its power, I decided for Space-colony.
   If playing for Space-colony victory on high lvls, it's extremely valuable to have Vassals that one's research one can direct, because Deity-AI-vassals are very strong researchers, even with only 10 cities. Me having Hatty, Lizzy and Darius as Vassals let me research 4 techs simultanioiusly, while, if I had conquered all their cities, my research maybe would have been 1.5 times of the one I had at that time.

So it's about getting more research through letting the Deity bonuses work for onesself, not about taking out rivals .

As a player who has only had a few wins on Emperor, I'm struggling to get my head around this. Fantastic play, and a great write-up. Very educational.

I particularly liked the way that your population increased by 750% in 100 years after Sushi came online. I remember in older Civ games the Demographics screen included an "Average Number of Children per Family" statistic. It would be very interesting to see how big a number that would be in this case, as the Eqyptian people were obviously breeding like rabbits.

Am I the only one thinking that Sid's Sushi Co must be secretly lacing their products with aphrodisiacs?

Average day in the life of an Egytian:

Work
Pick up some Sushi on the way home
Eat Sushi
Make babies

I had the same thoughts in Replay #3. Sushi generates also huge culture, and the large cities completely screw the Traderoutes from external to internal ones having incredible trade-values. Also, traderoutes make the most of the commerce, working the tiles doesn't, and with Sushi one needs incredible numbers of Merchant-specialists, therefor I assumed, that everyone is a Sushi-eating Broker that draws art in his free-time .

In all the years I've spent playing civ and reading these boards I've never seen a game even remotely like this one. You're incredible, Seraiel.

I wonder if I can back up to your previous update and ask a question. I don't understand how you whip -- that is to say, the means by which you decide, ”I should whip this city now.” I think my civ ability is hampered by the fact that I've never mastered the whip, and my whipping is rather conservative. But I've always found that whipping too hard cripples my development in the long run, so I'm always trying to work my city at close to max pop and avoid whipping away more than two or three citizens at a time. I always wait until that unhappiness wears off before my next whip, and seldom/never build up the whip timer. I'm looking at some of your cities and as you note yourself, you've whipped to such an extent that you have 200 turns of unhapppiness on the timer. That means you must have whipped 7 or 8 consecutive (or nearly consecutive) rounds, and that the city's unhappiness is at -7 or maybe -8 (you say as much above in your discussion of war weariness).

Take a city with a happiness limit of 15; -7 unhappiness means it can only work 8 tiles, and is effectively half as large and productive as it otherwise would be at full population. You're stuck waiting at least 30 turns before you can effectively increase your working population by a single point. But with Sushi your cities are increasing their size every two or three rounds. I can't seem to get this equation to balance – how do you do it?

I whipped exactly like you in my first games (you can see / read Replay #1 i. e. ) , small whips, wait until the whipping anger is gone, don't stack whipping anger. Then I saw the Isabella game by Mylene, and saw that she took her cities to +17 (!) Whipping Anger once Conqs became available, and roflstomped the whole map with them.

Then I wrote this post which shows how I thought about whipping after having read that game. Today, I see it situation-wise, while still sticking to a lot of rules defined in that post:

• You wanna rush someone? Whip as much as you can (of course not cold, always put at least one turn of production into something) , leaving only the tiles that are "very good" (worked Special Ressources) .
• City is growing onto an unimproved tile? Whip before it grows (whipping before growth is the best moment, there are guides about why this is so) .
• City is experiencing Anger-problems? Whip something giving (Markets are great giving +4 till very late game) with only 1T invested to not get the cold-whipping-penalty.
• You plan on constructing something big (National Wonder / World Wonder) ? Whip something with max-Overflow before that, because whipping the Wonder itself you would get a penalty, by whipping things into the Wonder you don't.
• You got Cuirrassiers? Whip heavily again. You should have let your cities grow before that, so that you have enough pop you can whip away. Once you have enough to win the war, you can let the cities recover again.
• You plan to run a golden Age? Whip as little as possible because with a GA, more tiles "get good" .

You see, it's basically about "what are good tiles" (i. e. every tile giving only 3 yields is no good tile) . Good tiles are worth working, while others are better to be whipped into units to conquer someone. There are moment when whipping is not the best way (approaching a superior unit, trying to get tech-rate up, etc. ) and there are cities that make good-tiles out of tiles that aren't good (Buro-Capital, HE-City, etc. ) , those cities must be whipped as little as possible (note that I still whip in them i. e. if approaching a war, or trying to build something like a Wonder) . The rule "I need this yesterday" overrides all rules, getting a 6th good city is worth more than working a Gold-mine, getting a troop to defend a threatened city is worth more than the lost pop, etc. .

It's hard to explain "how I whip" , because the answer to that is "I just wait for the right moment and then press the button" :> . I make sure that the city doesn't lose good tiles, because that's inefficient, anyhow, if "I need something yesterday" , the good-tiles-rule doesn't apply.

Regarding what you write, I do a lot of Math and try to think short- to mid-term, not only long-term. I. e. "I can whip a Library, giving me 6 but I loose 2 Cottages resulting in a loss of 4 :science" . I win 2 -> whip. Having the BUFFY (or BUG) Mod helps a lot with those decisions as it does a lot of Math one would have to do onesself otherwise. Or when it comes to Cuirrassiers, that tech-advantage is only there for a short time, therefor, one has to plan for it (cut on the whipping before it) and then overdo the whipping once it's there, this is maximising their lifespan. You don't need the population, except if you try to maximise the score or plan to play for a long time still, with units you can simply end the game before that. And a Happiness-limit of 15 is not very much (I had something like 30 in my round including buildings) , but again enough to work 8 good tiles and have +7 from Whipping Anger. You would be surprised how effecient a city of size 4-8 having enough Food and always whipping away bad tiles is.

And with Sushi, all these rules are obsolete. Then it's only a question of "do I need this or not" , need it, whip, need not, increase score.

Hope this answered your question somehow, if not, feel free to ask more I think you're thinking too big and too much long-term, you say a population of "only" 8, a size 8 city is Huge, those are 7 population that could conquer something .

Regards, Sera

 

[Sabertooth]

Guten morgen, Seraiel, wie gehts? (My German was better before, but I haven't spoken it in 20 years, so be gentle with me.)

I think you're thinking too big and too much long-term, you say a population of "only" 8, a size 8 city is Huge, those are 7 population that could conquer something

Well, I am an inveterate builder. I'm embarressed to admit that I've never played a successful early rush. I could dig up a thread for you I started once about a game I was playing, in which I tried to rush Mao as Darius – other players were congratulating each other on how easy it was to do so in my game (after downloading the copy and trying themselves), it took me like 5 attempts. I have poor warmongering skills in general, although they've gotten a lot better just reading your write up! (I'm playing a game in my spare time and applying what I'm learning here as I go along.)

For what it's worth I do follow most of the guidelines you posted above regarding whipping wonders, whipping away citizens working sub-optimal tiles, and so forth. I've read an article or two in the War Academy concerning the mechanics of whipping and there's a good article about optimal whipping strategy that I've followed perhaps a bit too religously. But I do think I'm still too conservative with the whip, I've decided after reading your thread that I need to loosen up at bit and get in touch with my inner sadist.

Can I ask, do you let your whipped cities regrow into anger again? It took me a long time to realize that it was okay to let cities grow even if they became ”polluted”, if you can believe that, and I always avoid letting citizen be angry if possible – and with careful management, it's always possible. But I'm not sure how logical that is to be honest. It seems to me that an angry citizen can be understood either as stored hammers, waiting to be whipped, or as an ”instant citizen” to be put to work the second I get that extra happiness resource or whatnot. So why not just let cities grow as large as possible, and whip down angry citizens when needed?

So yeah, going back to my original question, you answered the first part but I 'm still a bit uncertain about the second part – what do you do about 200 turns of whip anger? Doesn't it really stunt your development? Once you improve that 9th tile so it's worth more than yield 3, you have to wait 30 turns to be able to exploit it, yes? Here's where we differ as well I think, I try to keep my population as high as possible, and work as many ”good tiles” in the city as I can, so my size 15 city is working 13 good tiles and running 2 specialists, and being whipped every 15 to 20 turns to hurry some project along, while your city is working 8 tiles and won't be able to have the same capacity as mine for 200 turns – yet you maintain parity at diety, and here I am limping along at prince, so I'm obviously doing something wrong!

 

[Seraiel]

Guten morgen, Seraiel, wie gehts? (My German was better before, but I haven't spoken it in 20 years, so be gentle with me.)

Sehr gut, danke ^^

Well, I am an inveterate builder. I'm embarressed to admit that I've never played a successful early rush. I could dig up a thread for you I started once about a game I was playing, in which I tried to rush Mao as Darius – other players were congratulating each other on how easy it was to do so in my game (after downloading the copy and trying themselves), it took me like 5 attempts. I have poor warmongering skills in general, although they've gotten a lot better just reading your write up! (I'm playing a game in my spare time and applying what I'm learning here as I go along.)

First of, don't let others tell you if something is easy or not. Some people don't even realize how lucky they sometimes are, others lie and say "oh, that was so easy" even though they struggled hard, some are cheaters, and only some say the truth, but those normally also can explain why it was so easy, like "oh, Mao had neither Copper nor Iron nor Horses so I could use the advantage of Immortals up to its fullest, which was even easier because Mao had not a single city on a hill" or so.

Secondly, warmonger skills can be trained, but even if one has good warmonger skills (I believe mine are decent) one can fail hard. I remember that game before this, where Frederick took my 30+ units SoD of Praetorians out with Flanking Knights because I didn't feel the need to build enough Pikes because I thought "woah, Praets are so awesome, they kill everything" having taken out an SoD of Gallic Warriors that had nearly twice the size of my Praet-Stack which was even wounded at that time. Then I remember that game with Ragnar where I failed to conquer Ghandi (!!!) with Berserkers (problem there was I simply built too few of them and a target often gets harder the longer the war goes because 1. one loses units and 2. the target can defend fewer cities better than larger numbers) . I cannot count how many games I failed with Checkers trying to conquer hills-cities, the Isabella game I lost because the RNG funked me (there was a special thread about that in this forum where I doubted the % shown but it was simply a 1:200 probability) ... You see, there are various reasons why one can fail at war. Most are:

Attack too late.
Too few units.
Wrong mix of units.

If you want you can read the thread I linked in the 1st or 2nd post about the problems I had, there you can see that I lost at least 5 games before this one. It also contains good tips like i. e. from Kaitzilla "when rushing someone I don't even build a Barracks but get myself the 1st promotion from Theology / Vassalage" .
Sentences like that, or another one from Zx Zero Zx where he said "from the last 100 games I've won, I maybe had Universities in one of them" are sentences to help get rid of the builder style. I always like to say "the only building needed for winning is a Granary (though others can help) " or from Tachywaxon "I didn't have a GP Farm in that game" (and he won Space with a really good time I think) , those all show that there are several ways to win, and that only very few things are needed, Granaries, large well mixed SoD, that's all that's needed for Domination, no Barracks, no Libraries, nothing.

For what it's worth I do follow most of the guidelines you posted above regarding whipping wonders, whipping away citizens working sub-optimal tiles, and so forth. I've read an article or two in the War Academy concerning the mechanics of whipping and there's a good article about optimal whipping strategy that I've followed perhaps a bit too religously. But I do think I'm still too conservative with the whip, I've decided after reading your thread that I need to loosen up at bit and get in touch with my inner sadist.

That's good ^^ . Strict rules are always something hindering onesself. One has to have rules sometimes, but sticking to them religiously is most always wrong. Some of the most stupid rules that I had (and got rid of) :

Every city must have every building (no joke) . That rule was no problem until Prince.
I only found cities with a slight offset (so not directly in the N, S, W or E of another city) (yer, I'm a little neurotic ^^) .
Every city producing units must have a Barracks first (this was the 1st game where I didn't follow that rule, Alexandria had no Barracks but produced 3 of the 12 WCs in the beginning) .
Every city must produce units (there is no Wealth and no Science ^^) (I followed that rule in Replay #1 and won! )
Every city must have a Food surplus of 6 or greater (today I'm ok if a city has a surplus at all) .
Every city must get to Size 20 (ololol) .
I don't build temples cause they suck (AP temples are an exception, but they got that only recently) .
I must build the AP! (rofl)
I must build every World Wonder (no joke, and I did it in Replay #1 although I went for Domination) .
I build only Cottage-cities (rule from Replay #3) .
I don't accept a single demand from AI.
I only take IMP opponents because IMP is weak (ROFLMAO) .

And there are many many more. A friend of mine have decided, it's always ok to do things once (in Civ) , then one must have gotten over it, and we stick to that rule. Most important is to play the map. Build Hammers where there are hills and enough Food, build Cottages where there is a river and not so much Food, a GP Farm is useful but not necessary. Universities suck (like in RL) , no World Wonder is needed to win nor must-have (though missing Oracle is really harsh) , only building that's really must-have is a Granary (though I even skip those when rushing, yes, sometimes only units, no buildings at all for the first 2000y of the game) .

Hope that when noticing some of the stupidity of rules I had, you notice how some of your rules are hurting your overall game and help you get rid of them.

Can I ask, do you let your whipped cities regrow into anger again? It took me a long time to realize that it was okay to let cities grow even if they became ”polluted”, if you can believe that, and I always avoid letting citizen be angry if possible – and with careful management, it's always possible. But I'm not sure how logical that is to be honest. It seems to me that an angry citizen can be understood either as stored hammers, waiting to be whipped, or as an ”instant citizen” to be put to work the second I get that extra happiness resource or whatnot. So why not just let cities grow as large as possible, and whip down angry citizens when needed?

Very short: A city with angry citizens is no good (but it's still better than raising the culture-slider at most times) . Workaround for this is to build Settlers / Workers in them because 1. it stops Growth 2. Unhappy citizens don't cost Food when building those units.

So yeah, going back to my original question, you answered the first part but I 'm still a bit uncertain about the second part – what do you do about 200 turns of whip anger? Doesn't it really stunt your development? Once you improve that 9th tile so it's worth more than yield 3, you have to wait 30 turns to be able to exploit it, yes? Here's where we differ as well I think, I try to keep my population as high as possible, and work as many ”good tiles” in the city as I can, so my size 15 city is working 13 good tiles and running 2 specialists, and being whipped every 15 to 20 turns to hurry some project along, while your city is working 8 tiles and won't be able to have the same capacity as mine for 200 turns – yet you maintain parity at diety, and here I am limping along at prince, so I'm obviously doing something wrong!

Having large cities isn't wrong. My round shows, that I whipped at the edge of sanity. This was, because I was tired most of the time playing it and always thought "wow, this takes so long" and once I was awake again I thought "omg, what have I done" and later when Sushi came "whipping was the only solution" because my empire was short before going bankrupt.

Anyhow, this round shows, that there are different ways, and it shows, that whipping often doesn't hurt the developement if one whips the right things. I. e. whipping a SPI AP temple = good, whipping a Market / Grocer short before going bankrupt = good, whipping the Settlers with Astronomy, one can argue about that. Whipping Universities to build Oxford? Always a good choice (if Oxford is a good choice, often Cuirrassiers are faster) .

Whipping = instant production that hurts your later production / science rate, but, if you can conquer something with it, it's a trade with no bad side because the new cities absorb the lost population.

To get back at what you wrote: While you have 10 cities that are all size 15, I have 3 cities of that size that are highly specialized, 10 that are size 3-4, work only their best tiles and the rest gets whipped away, and I'm going to conquer again that much with the units I have. Whipping Anger doesn't matter, because once I have the new cities, I can whip in them and my old cities can recover, if one of them gets into Unhappiness, I whip a Market giving 4 Happiness costing 3 pop, if the city still grows into Unhappiness, I produce Settlers or work Specialists and stall the growth, and at the moment at which I can't do anything against it anymore, I've won the game .

Med vänliga hälsningar, Sera

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I don't accept a single demand from AI.

What you mean the middle finger diplomacy is a bad idea? Man the only time I ever lost with this was on Deity and 2 warmonger brothers declared on me a couple turns apart.

I only take IMP opponents because IMP is weak (ROFLMAO) .

Sad thing is it is probably the best trait in the game for the AI, but one of the weaker for the human. I once had a game on Immortal that I thought was Deity due to the fact that when I met my first AI on turn 19 or 20 they had 2 cities.

 

[Seraiel]

One thing I forgot to say:

Winning on Deity can't be cut down to not understanding a single thing. Winning at Deity means overal understanding of most things in the game, and winning a few gambits. It needs good Diplo, good Macro and Micro, and a plan. Ask yourself frequently: What is the most that I can do this turn, what do I need in 5-10 turn. Those 2 questions help me greatly to play really good instead of just doing this or doing something else. I always find something I can do more, and I always find something I didn't see.

And the best function of the BUFFY (or BUG) mod is the "reminder-feature" . Set yourself timers when to think of what, when to do what, etc. , your game will get better a lot because humans tend to forget.

Sera

 

[Seraiel]

What you mean the middle finger diplomacy is a bad idea? Man the only time I ever lost with this was on Deity and 2 warmonger brothers declared on me a couple turns apart.

One can win with lots of things that aren't good Zero, but I would think about denying Washington, one of the French leaders or Sitting Bull . If one has them on pleased, then it's no problem, but in the beginning of a game when one is weak and they are demanding instead of asking friendly...

Sad thing is it is probably the best trait in the game for the AI, but one of the weaker for the human. I once had a game on Immortal that I thought was Deity due to the fact that when I met my first AI on turn 19 or 20 they had 2 cities.

Today, I find IMP to be one of the strongest traits there are on Deity. With Rome, i sometimes was able to Oracle Feudalism, found 8 cities and build a Military aswell, which is IMPossible with others . I think about playing BurgerKing in near Future, because I finally begin to understand this game, IMP will let me get enough cities, and n00bphants work until Engineering .

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

One can win with lots of things that aren't good Zero, but I would think about denying Washington, one of the French leaders or Sitting Bull . If one has them on pleased, then it's no problem, but in the beginning of a game when one is weak and they are demanding instead of asking friendly...

Unless they are Deitys they can take their demands else where. If they want to fight bring it! My hill city Archers will just go lololololololol ok. But really Deity is the only point where the AI can start out producing the whip.

Today, I find IMP to be one of the strongest traits there are on Deity. With Rome, i sometimes was able to Oracle Feudalism, found 8 cities and build a Military aswell, which is IMPossible with others . I think about playing BurgerKing in near Future, because I finally begin to understand this game, IMP will let me get enough cities, and n00bphants work until Engineering .

I like the trait for that reason also. :3 I think the hammer bonus applies to chops and whips, but I am not certain as I would chop and whip the settlers anyways.

 

[Seraiel]

1 turn 1 hour!​

This is the name of the new episode, because it describes what the gaming was at that phase of the game. The civs were all racing each other to Railroad, I had to be the first to be 100% sure I get Mining Inc. and it was short after the economical collapse that came with Sushi. Lot's of decisions that had to be made, whip this or not, work specialist or not but also assign the right tiles because the governor is too stupid and prefers a grassland cottage rather than a gold-mine, doesn't want to work the food, etc. . In addition, Inflation is playing a growing role
It would get easier once the cities reach size 24, then it wouldn't matter that much anymore because every tile would be worked and the necessary 4 Merchants in every city would have been assigned, but in this episode, the empire is constantly at the edge, just to say.


And so, the story continues:


680 AD: I protocolled how great the benefit of the Micro had been over the last turns. In average, I was able to get 20 GPT + 20 BPT per turn with pure Micro. I find that quite a lot, though it's only about 0,5% of the empires GNP. Without Micro, I'd be either losing money at 0%, or I would have to slow down the spread of Sushi. Here is a Screen from that time, proving that the empire is really at its edge, 0 GPT at 0% (and no, I didn't change any tiles for this Screen, it was just so tight) .

On the screen, you can see the large colony of islands I've settled. The problem with the GPT comes from spreading Sushi to those cities, cities that don't have Courhouses yet (and wouldn't have in reasonable future without the power of Sushi) . Lets have a look at how far the Spread of Sushi has advanced 32 turns after its foundation:

55 cities got Sushi, so that makes 3 / turns, which is very very good. One has to keep in mind, that the Execs in most times take at least 2 rounds (1 to board the ship and the other one to get off board) . At that time, I spreaded to the biggest island-cities first, and then went for city-hopping again. You can see really many cities not having Courthouses yet, all those cities that cause 70-100g maintenance.

Just some quick numbers:

Number of cities: 90
Number of Galleons: 17
Number of Settlers on the way to their destination: 5
Number of cities building Settlers: 10
Number of cities without a Courthouse: 50 (!)

Makes Sense. 5 Executives need 5 Galleons, makes 5 for the Settlers on their way, and 5 returning to get 2 new Settlers each, so the 1 Shipyard I have, Kyoto, is capable of producing enough Galleons at the time, as I could still load 3 Settlers onto each of them.
These numbers show basically the coordination needed and they show the power of the core-cities, being able to produce enough money to pay for those 50 cities not having a Courthouse.


685 AD: Viccy builds the Broadway. I had no chance at that one, as she's researching a lot faster than my Vassals, I did not even have the tech to build it at that time. Anyhow, her building it is good news, as the Hit-Singles that I import from her help me keep the cities happy for some turns again. Note that some of them have up to +7 Unhappiness from not running Emancipation Civic and ontop of that are +7 - +8 Whipping Anger. Again, the cities, like the empire itself, are at the edge, with the biggest ones being size 20 atm and having a Happiness-limit of +36 (including buildings) . I made at least 10 notes ilke "I have to switch to Emancipation in near future" and "No, I cannot switch to Emancipation in near future, in need Slavery, otherwise, I funk up my whole Score because the spread would slow immensly if I would have to build the Execs, worse, how would I get Courthouses in my island cities? There simply is no other way then to run Slavery.


690 AD, I conduct 2 Bribes. Frederick has cancelled his Vassal-agreement with Brennus again so WK dares to fight him. Now that Military Tradition is available on the open Market, I better use it for something before others take the benefit from trading it. Also, Manas, who is always willing to declare war (but not fight) could take care of Asoka. Not that those 2 play an important role in the round, but I get Free Religion bonus with Asoka, yet, my Vassals don't have friendly relations, therefor, I can waste some Diplo-points and let those two constrain each other.

WK is fast and Hammu an idiot. In 700 AD, the first babylonian city falls.

Same turn: Micro was awesome, but it's not enough anymore. The last few turns I was spreading Sushi to many cities not having Courthouses again. Not only those cities are costing money, also the spread costs 75g / city, my treasury is burnt up, I have to use Macro: I set the Ironworks-city "Bangalore" to produce Wealth. Here is a screenshot from before that, showing the city WK took from Hammu, the IW city itself and the treasury being burnt up and the empire doing negative GPT:

Just because this city is new, and because it's almost fully grown, let's have a look at it's hammer-output and tile-yields:

City looks nice, doesn't it? It alone generates 210 GPT, that's as much as the holy buddhist city "Heliopolis" was making, let's have a look at that city too:

See the 1300 GPT that this city has as income? I tell you, this is only the beginning of the insanity of that city! Also on the screen: The first unhappy citizens. The city "only" has "+5 through cruel oppression" but is has "+4 through yearning to join the motherland" and "+7 for not running Emancipation" . Anyhow, it doesn't matter, the city can produce Settlers until I can switch to Emancipation, I need those anyway.

And regarding insanity, whipping and Settlers, let's have a quick look at the city of "Osaka", the one having the GT: You know, there is still a contest going on guessing its whiping-anger-duration at its peak, the winner may choose either the leader I have to play or the Victory Condition. The competetion is still lasting until the peak has been reached, so make your guess or die!

640 turns of Whipping-Anger-Duration, growing steadily :> .

Another look at the insanity, the financial Advisor of that turn:

Things to notice, are: The worked tiles are catching up a little, this shows the growth of the Cottages and the growing population. TRs are more powerful though, a difference to Replay #3 where I built only Cottage-cities, there the worked tiles were able to compare to the TRs. Because of the less Cottage cities, I need to build Wealth in some cities, and even though I do all that, the complete Income I have at 0% of Research (which are still 500 BPT) are from the SM-powered Temples XD (that does sound a little insane, doesn't it? SM-powered temples? XD)


1 turn 1h, I told you, this episode is gonna get long, but I keep it interesting. Only 1 turn later, in 710 AD, is another great moment for the superior yellow egyptian empire: It's the foundation of Mining Inc. !

Uh, only 8 Hammers? I don't have the ressources from the other Civs yet, but I was hoping Mining Inc would be more powerful, I've heard reports where people mentioned "it gave 30 Hammers" in their game, lie? Exaguration? I really did a lot claiming the Mining Inc. Ressources too, but it never got over 20 Hammers. Not that 20 Hammers aren't much, just imagine that with a Forge, a Factory and a Powerplant, than those 20 Hammers are 40, but I was a little sad at that time. Maybe it's the map settings which make things diffcult here, there are just 10 times as many Sushi-Ressources as there are Mining-Ressources, +40F from sushi sounds ok, but +20 from Mining in the end of the round was far less than I expected.

Whatever, Mining Inc will help me get up the Infrastructure on all those low-production island-cities, and for Space-colony aswell as for this game, this a great Milestone. There's one thing that's really good about Mining, and that is the maintenance caused by it, of course relative to the production gained. Mining never creates a deficit like Sushi does, if having a Forge, Mining produces more money than it costs, with a Factory and a PP, it would become quite significant in money production. Just an example, if 20 cities having the Hammer-multiplier-buildings produce Wealth, that's a net-gain of 5 / city so 100g, 100g from nothing, from just existing in that city! That's like 20 settled great Priests, but we all know, that those are busy with other things in modern times... But the Nuns aren't better either, just think of the scandal which was revealed in Spain half a year ago, the one where Nuns had stolen babies at the point of their birth, telling the parents that they died, and selling them to other families after that...

Well, all those get whipped in the yellow egyptian empire, and there are also good Priests, like the Angkor-Wat Priests doing overtime in my cities :> . Those don't have to work so hard anymore now that Mining Inc can generate some Hammers.


It keeps being interessing and we make little steps in this episode, because so much is happening. In 720 AD, I found the 100th city! People celebrate in a big fiest again, because they have another reason to celebrate, Salladin has been defeated! Interesting thing about the fact that you already knew from the last episode: The unhappy citizens I had because of the war against him costed not less than 300 GPT! I notice that, because next turn, I have a decent plus again and can take the IW city off again.


1T later, in 725 AD, I get Assembly Line from Hatty:

Important again because Factories are a huge gain of Hammers. The plan is to construct them plus PPs in all cities if possible. This will cause some , but with the round will go for a long time still, the way to space is really long and I got really many buildings to build, let me just do some quick Math if they were really worth it, I built (in every city) :

[A Granary, and a Lighthouse, a buddhist Temple, a Forge and a Courthouse] <-- those are in brackets because they are built before the Factory is built, so they don't count, but then:

A Factory + a Coal Plant = 1200 Hammers

A Bank = 600 Hammers
A Grocer and a Market = 900 Hammers
A Harbor = 240 Hammers
A Barracks = 150 Hammers
A Supermarket = 450 Hammers
An Aqueduct = 300 Hammers
A Hospital = 600 Hammers
A Public Transportation = 450 Hammers
At least 1 Executive = 200 Hammers
1 WB = 60 Hammers

Those are 1200 invested in a Factory and Coalplant, and 3350 Hammers in buildings fastened up by it. Anyhow, I must substract the 600 Hammers from the Hospital as that building would not have been needed if I hadn't built a Factory, so 2750 Hammers. X * 1.75 = 2750 is the value for the Hammers saved from the Factory and the Coalplant, and that is 1570! So without doing any Math on it, my instinct to build Factories everywhere was right, it saved me at least 400 Hammers / city, + I got Specialist Slots that give 1 Hammer more than the normal Citizen, and I constructed even more buildings in some of the cities, like Airports (those would prove to be the most awesome building, Airdroping Executives, that's just 1337) , I did Math about if Laboratories are worth building for a Space-colony-victory, they are, so about 10 of my cities had an Observatory and a Laboratory, and beause of all that Pollution generated, I also built Recycling Centers in them, so one can safely say, that a Factory is worth it if going for Space.
I guess a highscore-space-victory is the ultimate game for all of you builders out there, you can build, build, build, cities will have so many buildings in them, that you'll have to scroll down, even if you play on 1920x1200 :> . Doesn't that sound like fun? XD

But let's get back to insanity, the last update from the Financial Advisor was at 690 AD, it showed a city maintenance of 4500. That was 7 turns ago, let's get another update:

About 700 GPT more for City Maintenance, Civic Upkeep and Inflation. That is really insane, that's 100 GPT more expenses per turn! The last update from the Demographics is really old, it was in the 2nd last episode, let's also have a look at that:

The population again doubled, the egyptian empire now has 72 Million inhabitants, so it has reached the size of the country where I'm living (I think germany has a little more Inhabitants, but again, the ones living in the east aren't counting XD ) . More interessting than that number are the Gold, the Production and the Food. Gold went up from 8000 to 11000, that's an increase of about 30%. Production went up by about 25% and the Food by again about 30%. The increase isn't as dramatical as it was last time, that's because less time has passed, because some cities are already working max tiles, and because less multiplier-buildings were constructed (you remember the crazy whipping-action last time) .

Let's have a look at the Graphs, which are showing the power of Sushi clearly now:

No question at which point Sushi was founded. 1. marks the GAs, which were very powerful, you know that, look up the posts from the middle of the story, there, they made the difference between being medicore and being able to get #1 by superior production, but compare that to the direction the graph has taken from Sushi onwards, that's just ridiculous. I extra took only the last 200 turns, so that the very beginning isn't in these graphs anymore, otherwise, it would have been twice as steep. 2. and 3. mark minor points at where the spread made the graph change it's direction, I said I sent out some ships to centers on the map first, and then went for city hopping, that's basically what you see there.
The 3rd GA wasn't the last one that this empire's going to run btw. , there will be a 4th, then again, you'll see how the power of Sushi is just like 10 GAs.


1 turn 1h, are you getting a feel why this episode has that name? XD

735 AD, Hammurabi loses another city to WK. Yes! This is how the episode started, there was a war that the evil side of me inflicted, I made sure that all Civs are fighting each other, so that I can steer with only 500 BPT to Space XD .

But this wasn't the last city, only 2 turns later (745 AD), Hammurabi loses his 3rd city! What the heck is this dumbass doing? I scout him: The city WK take was deep into Hammu's territory, is he beaten already? The Graph goes straight down for both, but it's too early for a good screenshot, has this been the final battle? Hammu still thinks he's strong, but once Brennus will brake free, might he even vassalize to WK? "No way" I think, "this is Hammu, I've had a PA with him once, this guy builds units, he's gonna hold the line now and do what is asked from him" .


Btw.: For those interested, I'm doing -150 GPT every turn atm. , the only thing that still let's me spread Sushi and not lose units are the trades I conduct with the other empires. I trade them the last few turns of techs they are short before completing, with having a Spy-City ("Lisht") I make about 300 EPPT, which is enough to spy on everyone. Research is also up to 1000 BPT again, so the 500 from the beginning was only a short dizzy spell.

Coming back to the GPT and the trades, it's another trade that's saving the day again: Lizzy has researched Electricity!

The +1 Commerce from Windmills is 150 GPT, so I'm even again. Wou, that was really close this time, I had no other options left than cancel Sushi-deals with the other empires, but that's no option I wanna take earlier than really needed (meaning I have to make that decision at one point of the round, but I didn't like it) . Believe it or not, I re-negotiated the deals with the other empires just 5 turns ago, so I calculated with this, even though it's impossible to calculate, I just said "this is going to work for at least 10 more turns" at that time, but it was closer at the edge than I really thought.


Come, follow me for a 2 turns! Here is the 1st Screen of the empire doing 0 GPT directly after the Electricity-trade, so we're at the edge again:

Oh, look, a Workboat completed! Let's pick up that Fish...

"How much is the fish?"

-36 GPT? Are you kidding me? I don't care, I need more cities!

Hmm, only -30 GPT now, I have to found cities to pay for the Fish! How nice, a Settler has reached its destination:

So founding cities raises the GPT . Regretably there was no Sushi-Exec reaching any city, but next turn one will, now I have to do the Micro...

.
..
...
....
.....

A Courthouse-whip here, a Market there, I need Merchants, no stupid Spies... This looks a lot better now, a little less Beakers, I'm almost even...

Hey, where are you? I didn't say, you could go for a Smoke, now comes the interesting part! I'm gonna press Space to advance one turn...

[In the meantime, a Privateer sinks one of my Galleons having either an Executive on board or a Settler, doesn't matter, I'm . It belonged to Hammurabi, how I'd really like to kill him... Oh, WK is still doing that for me, perfect!]

Taddaaaa.... +165 GPT, thank God I'm still running Slavery and can whip Courthouses, now let me use that Sushi-Exec on that city that doesn't have a Courthouse:

450g left and still doing positive GPT, hey, another Sushi-Exec reached a city!

Hmm, still Gold left and positive GPT? There must be something wrong. Oh, yes, I don't have enough Ressources XD

And like that it goes, from 0 GPT to -30 GPT, saved by the whip, at +160 GPT in the next round, and down to -30 GPT again:

You know what I have to do now...

.
..
...
....
.....

Saved by the bell again, I can proceed 1 turn.


-------------------

I hope you know now, what this game was like, being constantly at the edge, 1 turn = 1 hour! Now get rdy for the next episode: 1 turn = 2h *lol* . No, just kidding. This episode isn't finished yet, the post has just reached its limit of 30 pictures! There is more to come soon, "make sure not to miss it, otherwise I'll go rampage!" (Btw., if you ask yourself rom whom this quote is, its from Lina Inverse, Protagonist of one of my favourite Anime Series named "Slayers" , it's really funny though it's really stupid sometimes, watch it if you like Anime or have children who do. )

Till soon,

Seraiel

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

I love the pure insanity of what you call a "commerce" city.

 

[Seraiel]

1 turn 1 hour! Part II​

There is one thing, that I totally forgot to tell you till this time, or mostly forgot, I think I mentioned the current score once, but don't know, and I'm not going to search through 4 pages now. I made a note to myself in 755 AD, that that was the turn, where the score was rising even though I slaved with the same extreme harshness that I slaved with every turn, so let's note that score and from now on protocoll it. Let's take 750 AD, because that's a better date if one has to do Math with it.

The overall (normalized) Highscore in 750 AD is: 875k!

Now that's about the score that I had in Replay #1 or the other rounds where I didn't go for Sushi but for early Domination on a Huge map. Top-game for non-Incan Civs was 1.4M and I already told you, that I beat that, I said "by far" . 1.4M beaten by far? How is this possible?

I'm gonna jump 3 turns (765 AD) . What's happened in the meantime is that I got another great Prophet and built the Temple of Salomon (Shrine of Judaism) , Willem van Oranje liberated a city, Pacal is new in the game and he's instantly getting on my nerves with his uglyness, his music and his behaviour to not open Border but be pissed from the start, the 1st city flipped because of Sushi culture (it was Cahokia, the city for which Lizzy defied the AP Vote, you can see it on the Screen) , and the new Score is:

918k! So 43k more in 3 turns, and I just have half of the cities that I'm going to have at the end of the round, only half of the cities I have have Sushi until now, and once they get it, they first have to whip a ton of buildings, before they can pay for themselves and grow (you've seen the list, I'm not whipping all of those, especially with having Mining Inc now, but I whipped every city till it at least had a courthouse, often I even whipped the factories in them because without the Engineer Slots, they had too little production, only the core cities have a lot of buildings up till now) .

To make long things short, that's about 15k / turn atm. and more is expected!


770 AD: Microing the cities wasn't enough already, I needed to build Wealth, I wrote about setting even the IW city wo Wealth in the last post. This turn, even that doesn't help anymore, I switch to Pacifism!
But that's still not enough for the insane dual-spread of the 2 Corps, I need at least +400 GPT only to pay for the Spread, I have no other chance, I have to cancel some of the Sushi-Deals! :/
Important for new Sushi-players: It's extremely important to have the right amount of Sushi-ressources, meaning, one has to have exactly (XXX / 4) +1. Raising the Food generated by Sushi by 1 needs four Ressources on Huge, now if you take everything you get, like let's say 6 ressources, 1 Ressourc is superflous, but that 1 Ressource can cost as much as 200 GPT! So microing the Ressources is an important part of "milking the score without going bankrupt" !


780 AD, BUFFY notifies me of something that happened a lot more often in Replay #3, but in this round it's a novum: Washington is willing to become a Vassal!

Wait, Washington, who was that...

Yes, Washington was the one who's Capital has his name... Wow, those are some nice looking cities, they're Huge, he must be an awesome Partner on my way to Space-colony...

Hmm...

All his cities are dark, normally I should be able to see my Vassals territory... Oh, that's Lincoln XD ^^ Now where is Washington again, his color is white, but there isn't any white American empire, ah, yes, there he is:

Urgs... Well, ok, at least he is a Deity AI, even though his cities get crushed by Culture, he can help me (in the end, Washington should turn out to be the best Vassal I had, because he was one that I didn't cripple with a war. )

My head was really smoking from all the Micro, Macro, "the Grind", I find it funny that I mistake Washington (who was last on the Scoreboard) with Lincoln (who was a top-Civ at that time) .

So that makes 4 Vassals and 34% of the landmass owned, but more important: The Score has broken through the sonic barrier of 1M points! Just some quick Math, those were 3 turns again, I've got 1.067M, so the last 6 turns brought in 150k, that's 25k / turn, developing like I told you (rising faster) . :>

Nothing else of importancy happened in those turns, besides the other Civs trading their Mining Ressources now, bringing Mining up to 15 Hammers, which is again less than I hoped, but with Multipliers, Engineer Specialists and an AW Priest, that's still 40 Hammers.


Viccy and Lincoln sign peace, which is of no importancy for this round anymore, as my power-rating has rocketed through the sky with the overall population increase, I have 1.7 times of Viccy's power now, meaning, she could not even declare war on me if she wanted, I'm safe. What's more of my concern is the war from WK against Hammurabi, because in 800 AD, WK conquers another one of his cities: 1 turn later Brennus brakes free, Hammu is on his own again.

"Hmm, WK is really beating that guy up, how is this possible?" I scout Hammurabi:

This is ridiculous. WK has not one, no, he has 2 Stacks that have are decent sized and most of the units are Cavalries! Remember that I bribed him with Military Tradition? He didn't even hav Cavs before, those must be either upgraded Units worth more than 20k of Gold (for a player) or they're newly produced, moah, I get so angry when I notice those huge bonuses this stupid Deity AI has, but I get even more angry, when a stupid other Deity is too dumb to defend it's cities. Hammu has still units left, what is he doing with the Rifles in his Capital? Why doesn't he draft Hammurabi to death?

Well.

I really thought about this, and decided, let Hammu go down. Nothing can happen to me anymore, my power-rating is high enough and I have good relations, Vassals don't help their masters, they only cost them money because of higher maintenance, Vassals increase the chances for wars between the AI, it's good if he takes him as a Vassal! Still I'm angry about this stupidity, I hoped for a long war that would exhaust WK, why doesn't he take Viccy as an example and fight and lose 2 cities?

Anyway, the Score: 1.144M 5 turns have passed, about 80k points gained, everythings ok It was a little more last time, because I got Washington as a Vassal, but about 15k / turn with heavy whipping, ok.

What's not ok, are the -300 GPT on the screen, believe it or not, but I had to always say to myself "doesn't matter, you whipped Courthouses during this turn, GPT will break even again" , but you know from the beginning that I've already cancelled some Sushi-Deals, switched the Civics to no-cost ones, I micro and macro all cities every turn, this is 1t 1h and I'm running out of options.

Rofl. Funny cause true: Savegame called "I need the shared favorite Civic bonus with Brennus, I hope this will not make me go bankrupt... If you translate that, it means "I don't know if I'm going to make it through the next 5 turns, this is out of control, I don't care, I risk it" XD


815 AD: I'm at 125 cities now! Wouhou!

I'm sure, after the financial trouble of which I told you, and all the work, you long to see a Screenshot of the Financial Advisor:

10k expenses, omg XD I'm really happy that that round is over, now just out of curiosity, I'm gonna switch to Enviromentalism which iggymnrr ran in his 200 BC Space Colony game: (note, I didn't do that in that round of course, it's just a test!)

Oh, I have to wait 4 more turns, here is one from 835 AD:

Trololololol XD . Good that I didn't misclick at one of the Civic-changes XD .


The score is rising, and and rising faster, I found cities, and I found more cities, I spread Sushi and I spread Mining, cities revolt to me, and others I get by being the Resident of the AP, some cities have grown so large that they have +10 Unhappiness from not running the Emancipatioin Civic *rofl* , I gift Warriors to Hammurabi so that he can prolong the war, Viccy builds another one of the Hit-Wonders, I didn't have any chance again but doesn't matter, I can trade the Ressource from her and get +400 GPT instantly, and I save the a savegame called: "OMG, 1 TURN 2 HOURS" *olololol*

I build the Pentagon, and "I find a way how I don't have to manage every city every turn!!!" I'm not gonna tell you how except you yourself play a Sushi game and need that info, important is, that from this point onwards, I was able to play one turn in 15-20 minutes again.


----------------------

Time advances, nothing special happens, I found cities, I spread Sushi, in 870 AD I break the 1.5M points (!) and the game is from now onwards the highest scoring non-Incan game in HoF, and in 885 AD, I finally have spread Sushi to enough cities so I can emancipate my women!!!

This is a the beginning of a new Episode, "Welcome to modern era, the time where Execs drop from the sky and where women may finally work!"

I leave you alone with some screens for now:

And at last:

Happy guessing

Sera

 

[Seraiel]

Unless they are Deitys they can take their demands else where. If they want to fight bring it! My hill city Archers will just go lololololololol ok. But really Deity is the only point where the AI can start out producing the whip.

Founding cities on hills really is free defense for as long as Catapults are available, and once there are Catapults, it's ololol if one has Drill II promoted LBs from Oracle Feudalism :>

Anyhow, I prefer to stay out of fights, most annoying about AI going to war with onesself are the bribes they do, one moment, everything is ok, "you just need that land and don't have Currency yet", and then it's 5 vs 1 and you have to cripple your complete developement and hope AI bribed stupid other AIs sitting 10 miles away from you, if they're your neighbours, ******** delete.

I like the trait for that reason also. :3 I think the hammer bonus applies to chops and whips, but I am not certain as I would chop and whip the settlers anyways.

You don't know that? ^^ IMP applies to all Hammers (not Food) , Whips counts as Hammers, Forges make Whips more efficient because they multiply Hammers. IMP imho is best trait, I'd love the Romans, Vicc, Catherine or OP Joao once, and surely will when the time is right.

I love the pure insanity of what you call a "commerce" city.

You mean "Adrianople", the city with the 5 coastal tiles and the rest all ?

Here is a Screenshot of it from the end of the round, now you tell me, what is that city, is it a Hammer City, a Commerce City, Hybrid or as what would you classify it? ^^

Because it's hard to see on those resized screens imo:

100 Hammers
180 Gold Income generated at 0%
150 Gold Maintenance caused with Courthouse
Size 30

^^

 

[iggymnrr]

10k expenses, omg XD I'm really happy that that round is over, now just out of curiosity, I'm gonna switch to Enviromentalism which iggymnrr ran in his 200 BC Space Colony game: (note, I didn't do that in that round of course, it's just a test!)

This is a bit of exaggeration. The date for space colony was 140 BC. The difference in cost between settler and deity is stark. I used environmentalism with Cereal Mills on the strength of only two GMB cities and no Wall Street with 44 cities. Pre-launch empire was netting over 10k BPT not 10k for expenses alone.