Replay #5 A history of heroes!

Black: Definately the spot I'm going to settle last, mainly a filler-city.

Go for an island city with the crab is an option imo. You have the GLH afterall.
 
Btw.: I've seen people call you "Sulla", you aren't possibly the Sulla who wrote that famous Civ4 that everybody read? I'm honored already of your compliment, but I'd be even more if you were, because that would mean it comes from someone who has written reports himself, so are you?

Nope, not me ;) I'm not really sure why Jamie called me like that, but if I recall correctly, I called myself like that once in a roleplay game (after the Roman general, just like Sullla the report-writer did).

The city is defended by 3 Archers and I know that it was already size 2 so doesn't get razed, I saw Frederick whip it, no way I'm not gonna take this city, "TSCHACKA TSCHECKERS!"

I'm not sure, but I think any city which has already had a borderpop (like Freddy's capital) doesn't get autorazed too.
 
Opinion accepted :) . I'll keep tracking the Commerce-status of Cuzco and Washington, once Calendar has been reached, though I don't think it's really that fair, because Cuzco, as a Research-Capital with Oxford had a much higher priority than Washington for me. I also got Calendar extremely late iirc.



Well to be honest it's not even the Incense that makes it stronger, it's the fact that it has more river grasslands. When you are going to start by working a tile with 3 commerce instead of 1 I would say it's going to provide a lot more commerce in the long run. Do you not move your capital very much? I always tend to move my capital in the BCs if I see a better spot.
 
Black: Definately the spot I'm going to settle last, mainly a filler-city.

Go for an island city with the crab is an option imo. You have the GLH afterall.

Island or coastal, where's the difference, other than that land is usually more powerful than water? Getting both would have been my solution, with overseas cities, the 2-tiles-minimum-distance between cities rule is not in effect, why not get the GLH-TRs 2 times?

Nope, not me ;) I'm not really sure why Jamie called me like that, but if I recall correctly, I called myself like that once in a roleplay game (after the Roman general, just like Sullla the report-writer did).

I'm not sure, but I think any city which has already had a borderpop (like Freddy's capital) doesn't get autorazed too.

I'm sry to proove you wrong, but a city must have been size 2 to not get autorazed, Borderpop or not, doesn't matter :) .

Well to be honest it's not even the Incense that makes it stronger, it's the fact that it has more river grasslands. When you are going to start by working a tile with 3 commerce instead of 1 I would say it's going to provide a lot more commerce in the long run. Do you not move your capital very much? I always tend to move my capital in the BCs if I see a better spot.

You're right about that, I very very seldomly move my capital, but that is also because I often play extremely awesome starts, where moving the capital would simply be idiotic. Possible, that it would have been a good move in this Replay, though Cuzco is on par with Washington imo, the additional Gold is just like 3 Cottages, and are you sure about the riverside tiles? have you noticed that the river runs around Cuzco? It has really quite a lot riverside tiles!

So nice of Roosey to build your favourite Wonder for you. :lol:

Roosevelt has a very high Wonder-construct rand, just like Louis, but the chance that exactly he'd directly go Calendar must have been ridiculously low. Anyhow, if he wouldn't have built it, I would have researched Calendar myself, constructed it myself, which would have been a lot faster, because Roosevelt is building the MoM out of 1 Billion Lego-parts :mad: .

But luck to the bold one, right? :)

nice from the incan people that will celebrate the building together with americans... it will be big party!

Incans will bring Bloodwine to the party. They'll freshly draw it in place! :cheers:
 
You're right about that, I very very seldomly move my capital, but that is also because I often play extremely awesome starts, where moving the capital would simply be idiotic. Possible, that it would have been a good move in this Replay, though Cuzco is on par with Washington imo, the additional Gold is just like 3 Cottages, and are you sure about the riverside tiles? have you noticed that the river runs around Cuzco? It has really quite a lot riverside tiles!

Cuzco has 2 Flood plains, 2 Riverside Grasslands, and 1 Riverside Plains. While Washington has 2 Flood plains, and 5 Riverside Grasslands. Washington is automatically better right there with out the Incense. The second Gold in Cuzco is going to give you a boost early, but I wouldn't say it's like 3 Cottages, it's more like 1 and a half. You also have to remember that it is a food negative tile. So you are either going to stagnate growth earlier on, or not be working it until you reach a decent pop. Where as Washington will be constantly growing while working cottages.

You must roll a lot better starts than I do, actually that's a given I had to go through 255 starts to find one that was acceptable for trying to beat the Dom time. But even when I get the really good juicy starts the AI always seems to have a better capital for me, for example a while ago I rolled a double gold, green hill pig, wet corn start to only find out that JC had a triple gem double wet corn start, and the rest was riverside tiles. I think the game actually favors the AI for quality starts.
 
Episode 2 - Part II
"All Checkers attack the PRO-Archers behind the Walls and come back!
No... no... nooooooooooo! I said come back you stupid idiots, not let yourself get farmed..."


Everything is going well, right? Well I'm working hard towards that, but AI is just so...

1620 BC, Pericles converts back to Islam while LIzzy converts to Christianity? "No stupid AIs, you should spread my Religion and stick to it, not convert to stupid Mansa's Religion or even a Religion absolutely nobodoy has..."

And the fun goes further, here are some "friends" visiting me:





Omg -.- Normally I'd never give in to these demands, Mansa is a Wimp, he can come if he wants, till he's rdy, I've connected Iron and my Axes and Checkers will have fun with his, well, what would he have had anyway? Let me have a look now that I can do some tests:



Ups, Swordsmen? That could have gotten harder than I'd have thought... Anyway, doesn't matter. I tested "rejecting his empty thread" , Mansa didn't go to WHEOOHRN. In the actual game though, I accepted his demand, not because I was afraid of him, but because I thought 240g for +1 is a decent deal. Peter however I denied, because Lizzy could become an important because one of few trade-partners, even if I can only convert her to Judaism for a few turns, doing this often enough will also stack up the bonuses so when she's in her Jewish phase, I could conduct trades with her.

But I must not complain, I got the Mids, I got the GLH, I got a tech-lead, this round is good, it's just very annoying because of Religious stupidity, but once I have free Ressources to spam Missionaries, they're all gonna be mine :mad: .


While Willem completes the research of Currency, without me being able to get anything for it simply because nobody has anything and my only friend Roosevelt is stubborn to construct the MoM before giving Calendar to me, I ask myself: Will 12, mostly decently promoted Checkers be enough for the walls-city of Coventry? :suicide:

I consult the Financial Advisor to see how much I'm paying on unit-upkeep:



28 :gold: ?!? That's way too much... I must get rid of some Checkers. 12 Checkers might not conquer the city in any case, but at least I'm gonna kill some of Churchills Archers, get some GG-points and can raise my Research after that, right? I'm a little bit confused by the 1.5%ish odds that are displayed for the Rambos "Odds are so low sometimes, I just have to sacrifice 1-2 Checkers / Archer and then I'll have like 80%ish odds" I think, having taken the hills-city with such ease, there the initial Checkers had 0.04% odds. The city is defended by 4 Archers atm.: "Now if I suicide 2 on each Archer, they will be softened up enough, it's just like a hills-city, 3 Checkers / Archer normally succeed, and I got well promoted ones, no way I'm gonna fail this again!"

This is how my thoughts go.

What I miss, is, that those Archers aren't normal Archers, they frightening CG2 + Drill PRO-Archer, they're again 50% stronger than the unpromoted Archer I normally fight.


1600 BC is an ambivalent year. It's the year where a new city gets born:



"Corihuayrachina", closing the cultural borders on the east...

And it's the year where a lot of Checkers die, Deity Seraiel orders the Checkers to attack the city of Coventry, a city whichs wall is red from the blood of the Checkers that died at it before:

The 1st Checker attacks with 0.2% odds, he brings down an Archer from 3 to 2.6.
"Going as planned."
The 2nd Checker attacks with 0.2% odds, he doesn't even scratch the defender.
"Damn, why must I have bad luck now."
The 3rd Checker attacks with 0.2% odds, he brings down another Archer from 3 to 2.6.
"Going as planned."
The 4th Checker attacks with 0.2% odds, he again scratches an Archer, losing 0.4 Health.
"I must bring in the 1337-Checker now, he has 60% odds, if he wins, I still have a chance!"
The 1337-Checker attacks with 60% odds, he almost wins... but he loses!
"Uhh, that one was close, but it's the right way, just bring in the big guns first!"
A Hero-Checker attacks next, having 20% chances, he dies, severly wounding the defending Archer.
"Yer, of course I couldn't just win that..."
A Rambo-Checker is ordered next, he has awesome 5% chances, he also dies.
"Hmm..."
While Deity Seraiel is getting desperate, one Rambo gets crazy and attacks on his own will! He dies *lol* .

"Now this is really not making sense, I don't have enough Checkers left to kill the Archers in the city, I'm not gonna attack further, I'm gonna pillage this stupid dumbass back to Stoneage :mad: . At least, I've reduce the upkeep I pay :goodjob:"

(Again, 8 Checkers lost, but this time it were the highly promoted Checkers, not the Unpros. Status of Churchills troops: Lvling. Lvling fast, very fast.)

Just out of curiosity, I open up diplomatic channels with Churchill, and say to him "Let us bury the hatchet, what is the price for peace?" This is his proposal:



Muhahaha. "Of course Churchill, I'm gonna give you the holy city of mighty Judaism, here, this is my middle finger for you!"

Plans: Get Catapults to support the Checkers. Learn: PRO-Archers behind walls are no fun. Find: Churchill is a Comedian XD . Coming up: Payback time :mad: . Orders till then: Pillage and plunder!


It's still 1600 BC, I have 12 cities and 18 workers, and about half of the Forrests have been chopped. All but the very newest cities have Granaries, the Main-GP-Farm "Berlin" has a Library on top to work Scientists just below the rate of the Great Prophet that is created in Washington, Washington itself is building a Temple to fasten up that process, the future HE-city "York" has a Barracks... It's time to build some Cottages! Research again has stopped, next tech shall be: Literature to get the NE and HE, to fasten up GP production and produce some really mean lvl 3 troops. I think I remember having had lvl 3 troops already, I wonder where they've gone... :roll:

The REXing goes further, in 1570 BC, I found the city of "Huamanga" near the Marble in the south:



Just in time to catch the instant Growth all cities get from the construction of the:



But before that, Washington demands that I cancel my deals with Peter... I have to give in, because Washington is dangerous when it comes to demands... I feel myself like a ball the AIs play with, but I'm gonna pay them back in time :mad: .



But now that I got the HGs, another snowball has been launched, +13 pop are huge, let's have a careful look at the graphs and the demographics and look how the Incans are comparing to the other empires:



O_O I knew that Incans are strong, that the map was good and that the HGs are a huge thing on Huge maps, but this astonishes me. Demographics prove, what the graphs already showed:



I'm farther ahead than I had imagined... I have 30% more GNP (Gold / Research) , I'm equal to the 2nd when it comes to Hammers, I've 50% more Food and I've almost twice the land area of the 2nd biggest Civ, not to mention that my population is also ranking #1. O_O Only thing I'm not good at is the size of the army, I wonder why :roll: .

There is something wrong with this map, either that, or the snowball of the beginning has simply grown to a size I could not imagine.

Same turn, I get Monarchy from Mansa:



And because I was lucky enough up to this point, Lizzy of course has researched Asthetics, so I lose my Monopoly again -.-

Anyhow, I got enough money to research Literature with 100%. 100% means 200 BPT O_O . 200 BPT normally is a value I have 500y later, maybe it's both? Incans are strong and there is something wrong with the map? Because if I'm going to get Calendar and work all those Calendar Ressources, I'm gonna have 400 BPT!


In the meantime, Commedian Churchill has entered his Version of Hitler, he wants to invade Russia (in this case that is me) . Have a look at the scene:



5 Archers otw. to Washington? But where are the remaining Checkers, I didn't sacrifice all of them: Washington farmed them! What you're seeing is all I got! I don't wanna know how his odds were for this, but this guy suddenly got some serious courrage, he attacked Rambos with Archers on the open-field and won! This is ridiculous, now, the great Incan empire has to defend itself from the english barbarians!

Yer, you're laughing now, and you're right about that :mad: . Stupid me, sacrificing 8 nicely promoted Checkers and lvling Churchills troops so they'd get dangerous. Churchills troops are 4 turns away from attacking Washington, what can I do...

*1 turn passes, I don't emergency whip yet*



WTF??? Churchill withdraws his troops! Did he see BigBossPlayer and got scared? I tell you, BigBossPlayer looks like Vin Diesel in RL, but no, it must have been the sun that was standing so low that his shadow must have seemed like that of a giant, impossible that he chased them away. One only has to look at BigBossPlayer and one knows that this guy couldn't harm a fly. Maybe they also thought "wow, he's a tactics-genius that has fortified himself in the woods, he's Legolas that that can jump on a 20 mph running horse", but I tell you, this guy is looking for mushrooms XD .

... BigBossPlayer? Nooo, you understood me wrong, I said you "need much room", because you're so big, and that you make "much kaboom" , not mushrooms, I said you "would terrifye" and "couldn't hesitate to fight" , not "couldn't harm a fly", what are you hearing again. No BigBossPlayer, we're friends, you're Vin Diesel, I'm Keanu Reaves, ok?

*handshake with BigBossPlayer*
*BigBossPlayer flexes his bizeps*
*2 turns pass*



"Hey, BigBossPlayer, there are some friends coming for you!"

*BigBossPlayer flees into the city of Washington*

"All Checkers perform operation Human Shield", he shouts!

"No, BigBossPlayer, that is only 1 Checker, and he's already over 2000y old, he can barely swing his club, we need some fresh Checkers."

*Heavy emergency-whipping starts.*

*4 turns later*



4 fresh young Checkers, + BigBossPlayer, are awating the attack on Washington:

*presses turn timer*



"WTF? Do you wanna dance with me Churchill? Believe me, I'm the better dancer of us two :mad: "

*Orders the Checker coming from the north to block the forrested hills-tile. If Churchill wants to move now, he has to move on one of two tiles that are open-field and have no defensive bonus, a place where my Checkers would have decent chances against his Archers*

*War is a dance-battle now: It's Churchill dancing on the hills, not letting himself get lured on an open-field tile with me, trying to move the Checkers so he gets lured on one of those tiles. This is like Chess for nuts -.-*

*After 3 turns I lose my patience and and shout to Churchill "Ok, we handle this like men now, you may remain on the hills, I attack you, and I still win!"*



Chances are 50% for the attacking Checker. For me, this is a win win situation. If I win, Churchill has less troops in my territory, if I lose, he may gain the courrage to attack Washington with the remaining Checkers in it, something which can only fail.

The 1st Checker attacks: And wins!
The 2nd Checker attacks: And wins too!
The 3rd Checker attacks: And loses.

Fair fight. Now only 4 of Churchills Archers remain, while I have still 4 defenders in Washington, no way he's gonna beat me, and his numbers are diminishing.

Anyhow, in the meantime Hatty and Ramesses have also met Churchill, and they somehow don't like him, I go to them both and:





I BRIBE THEM AGAINST HIM :mad: !

Of course, I don't expect them to do anything, but the trades are nice in every way. 140 gold from Ramesses for Maths is already nice, I need money to research Music, Literature is already complete, and Hatty is willing to convert to Judaism, will she be more faithful than Lizzy and Pericles? Even if not, I'm gaining diplomacy points through shared wars with 3 Civs now, which alone is nice enough already. Like this, I even have a chance to get the Egyptians on friendly although they have a different Religion. As it looks right now, this war ist going to last a long, long time, and Churchill is a Comedian, so it's gonna be a long long time for me to gather diplomatic points....

[to be continued]
 
Island or coastal, where's the difference,

I think we discussed this before, so you probably know this, but you may be missing a big commerce boost here. Just one island can give +100% trade route bonus to every city in your empire. Not to mention, the island itself gets all overseas route bonuses. I may not be that big a deal if you have plenty of foreign trade.
 
Hi Wastin :)

In this round, there are two completely different continents, and I have foreign TRs to the other one, giving sooooooooooooo much Commerce :)

Of course I remember what you said about founding some cities overseas asap, but in this round, I got it even better :)

Regards, Sera
 
I think we discussed this before, so you probably know this, but you may be missing a big commerce boost here. Just one island can give +100% trade route bonus to every city in your empire. Not to mention, the island itself gets all overseas route bonuses. I may not be that big a deal if you have plenty of foreign trade.

Yep this is why I settle every single island that I can when I have the GLH. You get a huge economic boost. That one island can double or triple your trade routes.

Sera how do you manage to bribe the AI into war so cheaply. Every time I want to they always want 2-3 techs, which I still end up giving them. -.-;
 
I think we discussed this before, so you probably know this, but you may be missing a big commerce boost here. Just one island can give +100% trade route bonus to every city in your empire. Not to mention, the island itself gets all overseas route bonuses. I may not be that big a deal if you have plenty of foreign trade.

I saw this one mentioned already couple of times at points, but everytime I tried to test this the island city never gives out more TR's then it should...

practical example:

7 cities on continent, 1 island city, GLH and currency.

the island city has 4 base 2 commerce trade routes, if I rotate through all cities, some of them have base 2 commerce trade routes, but definitely not all of them.

So can someone explain?
 
What impresses me most is that you do what every high-level player advises against (in "normal" games): doing everything at once. You're rushing three civs AND REXing AND building about every useful wonder there is all at once and somehow you make it all work....I didn't think that would be possible.
 
This game is blowing my mind. So many things happening and that just with checkers. Keep it coming. Love the game.
 
This is really interesting - despite being way out of my playstyle, I still think this series is quickly becoming my new favorite forum game series :goodjob:

One thing I'm confused about though:
...I tested "rejecting his empty thread" , Mansa didn't go to WHEOOHRN. In the actual game though...
What do you mean by "testing?":confused:
 
I'm not sure, but I think any city which has already had a borderpop (like Freddy's capital) doesn't get autorazed too.
This was true in Civ 3 but not Civ 4. In my 3.38 million point game, I conquered a holy city which had popped its border and which got autorazed.

Hi Seraiel, I will read this thread along with you
 
This is really interesting - despite being way out of my playstyle, I still think this series is quickly becoming my new favorite forum game series :goodjob:

One thing I'm confused about though:

What do you mean by "testing?":confused:

He means looking at the save games now, he can make different decisions than he made originally to see what would have happened.


I conquered a one-pop city in a recent game that didn't auto-raze. It had gained some culture, so I thought that might be it, but maybe it would have gone up to two-pop between turns and then I conquered it before it showed? I don't know really. :dunno:
 
I'm not used to B&S maps giving 2 continents. Must be because it's Huge.

Even on Huge, having 2 Continents is something that happens in 30% of the games at most, and I've not seen it yet, that the 2nd continent wasn't reachable easily without Astronomy. I think, having 2 continents in this game is / was one of the minor advantages I had in the game, though it made a lot things a lot more difficult, i. e. spreading Religion, getting Writing in the beginning, and similar.

Yep this is why I settle every single island that I can when I have the GLH. You get a huge economic boost. That one island can double or triple your trade routes.

Sera how do you manage to bribe the AI into war so cheaply. Every time I want to they always want 2-3 techs, which I still end up giving them. -.-;

Bribes get cheaper, the more Civs are in war with a Civ, because their power gets added on each other. And you must not forget, that 1 tech on Huge / Marathon is as expensive as 3 techs on your settings, because the scaling is totally stupid. This is also why TMIT said that it's almost impossible to get a tech in a peace-treaty on those settings, just imagine that stupid HBR already costs 1.5k :science: , that's the value of 3 cities for the stupid AI :lol: .

I saw this one mentioned already couple of times at points, but everytime I tried to test this the island city never gives out more TR's then it should...

practical example:

7 cities on continent, 1 island city, GLH and currency.

the island city has 4 base 2 commerce trade routes, if I rotate through all cities, some of them have base 2 commerce trade routes, but definitely not all of them.

So can someone explain?

I for sure cannot, but there may be a time in the game when it's easier to explain the TR-issue. Once I'll have Sushi, I'll let 4 cities grow without whipping them, and those 4 cities will become the backbone in TRs for the economic situation of the whole empire, by almost all cities having the same (internal) TRs.

What impresses me most is that you do what every high-level player advises against (in "normal" games): doing everything at once. You're rushing three civs AND REXing AND building about every useful wonder there is all at once and somehow you make it all work....I didn't think that would be possible.

Doing everything at once is mainly a sign of the opness that comes with the Incans. In my Ramesses Game (Replay #4) I didn't even try to get the Mids or the GLH, even though that guy is IND too. To imagine the power of Incans one has to look at how many cities I had in that game, 5 cities by 3000 BC, 10 by 2000 BC, 15 by 1500 BC, etc. Having so many cities and especially having so many Forrests allows doing everything, and, I had a little luck too, because I've seen GLH + Mids go at 2000 BC in some games, I got them between 1900 - 1700 BC which are already "non-safe-dates" for those. Anyhow, the game is now in a position to really do what I want, it began with finishing the HGs, an extremely powerful Wonder on Huge / Marathon, I basically have twice the power of the other empires at that point.

This game is blowing my mind. So many things happening and that just with checkers. Keep it coming. Love the game.

Thx :) I wish that one game where I once conquered 6 (!) Civs with Checkers would have made it into HoF, but I reloaded the wrong save once, therefor, that game became invalid. That game had the most terrific start I ever had, anyhow, I still only scored 2.6M in it. Learning about the endgame, and, learning about the game through playing other Civs than Incans was, what improved my game so beating 3.2M was possible.

This is really interesting - despite being way out of my playstyle, I still think this series is quickly becoming my new favorite forum game series :goodjob:

One thing I'm confused about though:

What do you mean by "testing?":confused:

Thx for the compliment, and see what happyturtle wrote.

This was true in Civ 3 but not Civ 4. In my 3.38 million point game, I conquered a holy city which had popped its border and which got autorazed.

Hi Seraiel, I will read this thread along with you

Nice that you also join in :) . From you I learned the endgame of a Sushi-round, prepare for the maddest REX of history, a REX in which I was almost going broke while running GAs! Once out of the GAs, everything crashed 3 times as hard as in your game, -500 GPT? Prepare for -2000 GPT :D .

He means looking at the save games now, he can make different decisions than he made originally to see what would have happened.

I conquered a one-pop city in a recent game that didn't auto-raze. It had gained some culture, so I thought that might be it, but maybe it would have gone up to two-pop between turns and then I conquered it before it showed? I don't know really. :dunno:

Don't forget the whip. Rule is a city must have been size 2 once, any city that has never been over size 1 gets autorazed unless you play with "no-city-razing", 100% sure about that :) .

Writing the next part of the Writeup now, cya all,

Sera
 
And you must not forget, that 1 tech on Huge / Marathon is as expensive as 3 techs on your settings, because the scaling is totally stupid. This is also why TMIT said that it's almost impossible to get a tech in a peace-treaty on those settings, just imagine that stupid HBR already costs 1.5k :science: , that's the value of 3 cities for the stupid AI :lol: .

I'll chalk that up as my "new Civ4 mechanic learned for the day." Had no idea that it was harder to get techs in peace deals on slower game speeds. Does this really also apply to war bribes - you only need give them 1/3 as much effective tech to start a war?
 
Top Bottom