Replay #5 A history of heroes!

[Pangaea]

The "IQ" of someone doesn't matter, because in a 1:1, aim is to understand the other one, he / she will try to adapt as I will, meeting is finding common ground, the only thing I can imagine to hinder one to not find that ground is not having self-confidence, as then, one doesn't know what one is doing / saying -> cannot understand the reactions, but as someone who wasn't born with self-confidence, I can approve, finding people is even possible without it, then one simply doesn't know how it worked, but one always can.
And: There is always the possibility to stay alone, that is mostly regarded as being anti-social, but there are / were lots of anti-socials existing in history. Borderliners are often misunderstood as being anti-social, something they aren't.

You have no idea how fitting that is for me right now... Well, not exactly but somewhat related. But that's a whole other chapter that isn't right either for this forum and especially this thread. Suffice to say, I totally agree.

While we're on spelling errors - which really don't matter as your English is very good, besides I just noticed I wrote "involved" above instead of "evolved". Small error, but everybody still knows what I meant (hopefully). It's "resources" and not "ressources"

English is actually a very difficult language to write, because the spoken English is so far removed from the written. You basically have to know how to spell every word, because it's nigh on impossible to know how it's written based on how it's spoken. That's very different from German for example (of which I know some, but not a lot any more). That's why so many people, especially mothertongued English actually (it's less common among "foreigners") make of/have errors, now/know, your/you're, that kind of thing. Kind of on the other end of the spetrcum are languages like Arabic, which is based on phonetics. So for them to know how to write something you need to speak it first. Languages are funny and interesting, like in how so many words are similar in vastly different languages. But I'm babbling on here

Look forward to the next update

Oh yes, to the joke. It was about the idea of free will, as in mankind's ability to think independently for themselves in a way that animals can't do - at least to the same degree. Many of these philosophical ideas originated in Ancient Greece. So that was the joke. Convoluted and probably not very funny, but as said, I sometimes have a weird sense of humour

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

What the frack are you smoking Pangaea, give me some it sounds good. Animals have more free will than humans do. Animals do what ever they want, take my cats for example I can't tell them what to do they just do what ever they want. Or AbsoluteZeros cat who thinks the computer chair is hers. How is this not free will? How are we humans free when our governments control our lives. You can't not have free will when you live in a society which is very close to becoming just like Hitlers Germany, it is the same all over the "First" world.

 

[vranasm]

What the frack are you smoking Pangaea, give me some it sounds good. Animals have more free will than humans do. Animals do what ever they want, take my cats for example I can't tell them what to do they just do what ever they want. Or AbsoluteZeros cat who thinks the computer chair is hers. How is this not free will? How are we humans free when our governments control our lives. You can't not have free will when you live in a society which is very close to becoming just like Hitlers Germany, it is the same all over the "First" world.

sorry but you don't know how it looks in real totality system...

I have lived my childhood in one and can tell you there is HUGE difference before 1989 and after.

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

sorry but you don't know how it looks in real totality system...

I have lived my childhood in one and can tell you there is HUGE difference before 1989 and after.

A Fascist Democracy is still a Fascist society.... Just because the leader changes every 4-8 years doesn't mean that the corporations don't control everything.

 

[Pangaea]

What the frack are you smoking Pangaea, give me some it sounds good. Animals have more free will than humans do. Animals do what ever they want, take my cats for example I can't tell them what to do they just do what ever they want. Or AbsoluteZeros cat who thinks the computer chair is hers. How is this not free will? How are we humans free when our governments control our lives. You can't not have free will when you live in a society which is very close to becoming just like Hitlers Germany, it is the same all over the "First" world.

Going into this would be massively off-topic, but a short answer might be that humans have what is generally considered free will, the ability to think independently and make (hopefully) rational decisions based on current information. While animals tend to be much more based on instincts. That doesn't mean animals are machines who just eat and and hunt, but it does mean that humans are very different from other animals (yes, we're an animal too) in that we have much higher capacity for "thinking" (to be general about it).

Searching for this will certainly yield much better results than whatever argument I might offer anyway.

I tend to agree with you on the somewhat dark view of Western societies right now btw, but that's a totally different discussion than free will. But it's an odd one. Individual humans tend to be fairly intelligent, at least not docile husks, but as a large group we are incredibly stupid many times. Maybe it has something to do with being flock animals, or maybe with how society is organised. I'm not sure. But it's a strange phenomenon.

 

[vranasm]

A Fascist Democracy is still a Fascist society.... Just because the leader changes every 4-8 years doesn't mean that the corporations don't control everything.

just the thing you so openely discuss these things here tells me you really have no idea.

maybe the goverment tries to aim some way to repeat the mistakes of socialism here in Europe, like they didn't learn anything in the 70 years of socialism in russia, but I assure you we're still FAR AWAY...

and what I know...maybe this time the socialims collapses even before there will rule some 1 party which all voters will vote for with 99% attendance of eligible voters and my kids will have access to all type of schools.

You have to understand that a lot of people feels that they don't have options, because they lack money. So they say it's the same as in totallity before 1989.

But there is difference... this time it's lack of access to money and your responsibility to get it if you have the skills (look at all the succesful young millionaires in US), not some arbitrary decision that based on who's child you are tell you what you will do.

And for all I care... you still can buy bananas and toilett paper every day!

 

[Pangaea]

A Fascist Democracy is still a Fascist society.... Just because the leader changes every 4-8 years doesn't mean that the corporations don't control everything.

Everything is probably pushing it. For the time being at least the state still has reasonable monopoly over the use of violence, though that has been fading a little with the introduction of mercenary groups used in wars - euphemistically called contractors. And then there is tax and various other such domains. But there is an increasing democratic deficit due to the corruption of the political space and swingdoor policies where politicians move from office to corporate headquarters rather seemlessly, and it's sometimes hard to know for whom they work at what time. Then there are the lobbyists...

Quite a different type of democratic deficit than living in Stalin's Soviet Union or something like that, but bad in other ways.

This is going slightly off topic from the Replay though

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

Going into this would be massively off-topic, but a short answer might be that humans have what is generally considered free will, the ability to think independently and make (hopefully) rational decisions based on current information. While animals tend to be much more based on instincts. That doesn't mean animals are machines who just eat and and hunt, but it does mean that humans are very different from other animals (yes, we're an animal too) in that we have much higher capacity for "thinking" (to be general about it).

Searching for this will certainly yield much better results than whatever argument I might offer anyway.

I tend to agree with you on the somewhat dark view of Western societies right now btw, but that's a totally different discussion than free will. But it's an odd one. Individual humans tend to be fairly intelligent, at least not docile husks, but as a large group we are incredibly stupid many times. Maybe it has something to do with being flock animals, or maybe with how society is organised. I'm not sure. But it's a strange phenomenon.

We can not speak with animals to see what they have to say, all we can do is observe them, and so far most human observations are only a very small portion of the truth. Take Physics for example, in modern Physics we only understand something like 1% of the Physics of the Multiverse. So I won't take the general assumption that animals don't think at all. Many species of animals sure as hell seem like they think, and care about their kind a whole lot more than humans do. Also once humans create a society they are much more of a cancer than an animal. They come into an area, and deplete all of it's resources while destroying the environment, this is very similar to what a cancerous cell does. I don't know, I am just an eternal pessimist about the human race.

 

[Pangaea]

just the thing you so openely discuss these things here tells me you really have no idea.

maybe the goverment tries to aim some way to repeat the mistakes of socialism here in Europe, like they didn't learn anything in the 70 years of socialism in russia, but I assure you we're still FAR AWAY...

and what I know...maybe this time the socialims collapses even before there will rule some 1 party which all voters will vote for with 99% attendance of eligible voters and my kids will have access to all type of schools.

You have to understand that a lot of people feels that they don't have options, because they lack money. So they say it's the same as in totallity before 1989.

But there is difference... this time it's lack of access to money and your responsibility to get it if you have the skills (look at all the succesful young millionaires in US), not some arbitrary decision that based on who's child you are tell you what you will do.

And for all I care... you still can buy bananas and toilett paper every day!

I get what you are saying, but the problem is that there are structural core problems with the system in the West, with the absurd type of capitalism we're running, which makes it very difficult to move from a low-income bracket to a high one. It's possible, true, but very difficult and you generally have to screw over just about everyone you meet to get there. Then there are issues with how the economic system craps all over the earth and our ability to have a planet to live on in the future, which is another serious problem. Bottom line today is more important than an earth tomorrow.

Bit strange to call what went on in Eastern Europe for 'socialism' considering they crapped all over any central aspect of that - authoritarianism would perhaps be more fitting. But that's not important. Both system clearly have their serious misgivings, just in different domains.

Incas, eh?

 

[vranasm]

last post from me on the topic of fasisct system ;-).

One practical example how things would go

1) Zx claims the state is fascist
2) vranasm (doesn't have access to forums, since everything outside the "bad" side is blocked)
3) TMIT tells no you're wrong and it's actually pretty OK (he doesn't think so, but since he knows that a lot of people's are reading thinks it would be ok to say something like this)
3) Lymond (sorry ) reads and reports it to nearest leader of Totalirian party of USA

Zx ends in prison, his kids are fired from all of kind of better schools (uni, good high school etc) and bring mark of "bad person" until the end of their lives.
Wife, Parents, Uncles all lose their jobs and are moved to jobs in some mines, unless they are true to the great party of USA

after Zx comes out after 5 years in prison, he ends in Uranian mines.

If you happen to be in bad era (like 50's in CR) Zx is killed instead of sent into uranian mines, but the rest still stands, this time there is no "being true to great party of USA"

 

[vranasm]

I get what you are saying, but the problem is that there are structural core problems with the system in the West, with the absurd type of capitalism we're running, which makes it very difficult to move from a low-income bracket to a high one. It's possible, true, but very difficult and you generally have to screw over just about everyone you meet to get there. Then there are issues with how the economic system craps all over the earth and our ability to have a planet to live on in the future, which is another serious problem. Bottom line today is more important than an earth tomorrow.

Bit strange to call what went on in Eastern Europe for 'socialism' considering they crapped all over any central aspect of that - authoritarianism would perhaps be more fitting. But that's not important. Both system clearly have their serious misgivings, just in different domains.

Incas, eh?

the problem is that socialism, communism never works since the thesis is absolutely wrong and is wrong to tell that it can ever work.

the problem here is human being

you want to know what we learned in school about this?

Those 10 years all I heard was "we have to change the people through educating them to be better humans". never worked.

The system is wrong on it's basis.

this time real real last post.

anything further just use PM's if you want to know how it looked here and what kind of lessons we have to learn.

 

[Pangaea]

We can not speak with animals to see what they have to say, all we can do is observe them, and so far most human observations are only a very small portion of the truth. Take Physics for example, in modern Physics we only understand something like 1% of the Physics of the Multiverse. So I won't take the general assumption that animals don't think at all. Many species of animals sure as hell seem like they think, and care about their kind a whole lot more than humans do. Also once humans create a society they are much more of a cancer than an animal. They come into an area, and deplete all of it's resources while destroying the environment, this is very similar to what a cancerous cell does. I don't know, I am just an eternal pessimist about the human race.

I know what you mean and agree with a lot of it, but maybe I wasn't able to properly get across what free will is. Besides, I think there is a fairly heated debate about free will or not among animals. With the more intelligent races like dolphins or some apes, one can make an argument that they do at least have a fairly well-developed ability to "think". Not just about mundane things, but so that they can make and use tools too. To my understanding, though, free will is quite a bit more than that. There probably isn't a black/white boundary, but I think there is little doubt that humans have a much higher brain capacity to "think" than any other type of being on the planet. For starters, we are sitting here discussing this very issue. Perhaps cats or dogs have existential crises about the meaning of life and death, or what to do next Thursday at 5 o'clock - but I do doubt it

Think we agree on a lot though. That much is apparent.

 

[Pangaea]

the problem is that socialism, communism never works since the thesis is absolutely wrong and is wrong to tell that it can ever work.

the problem here is human being

you want to know what we learned in school about this?

Those 10 years all I heard was "we have to change the people through educating them to be better humans". never worked.

The system is wrong on it's basis.

this time real real last post.

anything further just use PM's if you want to know how it looked here and what kind of lessons we have to learn.

Human beings created capitalism. Human beings created communism. So in that sense I agree human beings are funked up (to use Seraiel's term).

"Educating" them North Korea style is hardly the answer, neither is the political system that existed in Eastern Europe and some other places. But, neither is the political system that exists in, say, the US now, or Chile, Argentina, Brazil etc in earlier times. Both "sides" are authoritarian, just to different degrees and in different domains of life. It was much more 'direct' and abusive in communist societies, while in capitalist societies that rarely happens but the 'abuse' is more hidden and structural. It's sometimes called structural violence vs direct violence, which I think are fairly good terms.

But we really need to end this now before Seraiel goes rampage

Think many of us basically agree actually, but disagree on some of the finer points.

 

[happyturtle]

I wonder if I can get some sushi flavoured pizza.

This might be an attempt to re-rail the thread to the topic at hand.

 

[vranasm]

I wonder if I can get some sushi flavoured pizza.

This might be an attempt to re-rail the thread to the topic at hand.

I hope Seraiel got some stuff for #6 play/re-play

and kind of hope he doesn't remove me from friends list after this ;-).

we need more incas now though.

When we're at it... Incas seem to be firm believers into corporations and free market ;-)

 

[ori]

This might be an attempt to re-rail the thread to the topic at hand.

Moderator Action: This would be a good advice to heed for everyone...

 

[happyturtle]

Would the Favourite Civic be Free Market or Slavery?

 

[Seraiel]

Episode 6​

Being married with queen luck​

The last episode already gave a spoiler and the title basically says what this episode will be about. It'll be the beginning of the end of the round. It started with me getting the right kind of Great Person for a glorious 5th GA, while having 30% odds for that:

This screen is from 705 AD. 1 turn later, so in 710 AD, I finish the research of Radio, unlocking a Hit-Wonder aswell as the Eiffel-Tower, and it make Incans reach the Modern Era!

Also: Mansa got a Great Engineer and founded Creative Constructions. This may be the event that made him decide to try a Cultural Victory later, but we aren't there yet, atm. he's still researching the tech of Flight.

I'm also planning on how I'm going to end this round, plans are:

• Only build the most necessary buildings in the under-developed islands-cities. These are mostly the and buildings, I delete all Banks that I queued because those only contribute to the economy.
• I have a feeling, that with me having founded so many cities in such a short amount of time, and with the score rising so tremendously fast, that there will be an aprupt end to this. Therefor, I plan for a military Victory, as Space-colony still seems too far away.

Problems with this type of victory are:

• Darius is probably to small, most of his cities are on islands, war on him won't be enough to push me over the domination limit.
• Washington is highly developed, he has a huge military of Rifles.
• My army isn't very fast in this round as I mainly built 1-movement-units, Cavs don't do well against Rifles, Tanks are out of reach for the moment, this all says that pulling of a Blizt is impossible.
• Other Civs on the Continent are Mansa and Ramesses, both are no option as Mansa is my Vassal and Ramesses is simply too powerful with being second in score, conquest against him would probably end in a stalemate with the forces I have now.

That is why I'm looking at the other Continent. There, Peter is still far away from anything better than Longbows, his empire is large enough, most of his cities are coastal, so I could plan for a naval-invasion.

I notice that my worries and plans are way too early, when recognizing that over 30 cities still don't have Sushi, I have to focus on the spread, but I have to watch out closely for the developement of the score, and, I have to plan for an abrupt end that I have to set to the round with military, therefor, continue on training units.

These thoughts are important, I have to decide how I will end the round which atm. means I have to decide on what to research next. My priority is maximising the score, not conquest, therefor, I direct Research towards Refrigeration, and not towards Industrialism. Losing further Ressources from Industrialism could kill my economy I think, I have to wait until I have the Eiffel-Tower and the next Hit-Wonder, maybe, I even have to research Mass-Media to get Hollywood before going for Tanks. Refrigeration seems logical choice to win some time, and Supermarkets are awesome late-game-buildings having the best / ratio of all buildings.

715 AD: AP-Madness again:

I can choose from which empire I want to take a city away. I decide for Washington's city as he's more powerful than Darius, taking Mansa's city doesn't seem to make sense.

I reach 2 Million points and I'm able to aquire some more Mining-Resources, pushing my Corporation to +27 .

720 AD: I'm cursing about the caused the other Civs running Emancipation. There is no way to switch out of Slavery yet, as too many cities don't have sushi yet. Just as a short sidenote: It's been almost half of a Millenium now after Sushi has been founded and I payed great attention to spreading it really fast, this somewhat shows the extreme size that an empire can reach on a Huge map, but it also proves again that cold-whipping the Execs is the only choice, as the limit of 5 Execs is the biggest slowdown regarding Corporation-spread.

725 AD: The grind shows me its wisdom again, I'm able enhance my scheme of empire management. The things I notice here are basically unimportant for anyone not playing a Sushi-game, and I'm willing to tell everybody trying a highscore approach (in a PN because it'd be quite longish) , as readers, you only have to know that I can reduce the length of a usual turn from between 1-2h to half of that, so 0.5-1h / turn. Even microing almost 200 cities only takes me 40 minutes now, that is again twice as fast as in the beginning of my Sushi games.


Time to press on the gas and time for another Triplet:

The Eiffel Tower in 750 AD:

Rock'n'Roll in 770 AD:

The Christo Redentor in 815 AD:

Now that were 3 big jumps, things happening in between:

I get Flight from from Mansa and construct 11 Airports in the production heaviest cities on the continent:

Building Airports in the production heaviest cities makes sense, as those cities will be the ones producing the Execs. Units that get Airdropped may not have moved on that turn and Execs take a lot of Hammers, in addition, pumping them out as fast as possible enhances the spread, this all has great synergy.

I steal Rifling from Washington:

I reach 2.5M points (notice how fast the score is developing) .

I reach Assembly Line in 790 AD.

One city after another is revolting and joining the Incans.

I switch to Emancipation in 795 AD. The additional happy population makes research explode. In addition, I upgrade the Galleons to Transports, the Frigates to Destroyers, the Zeppelines to Fighters and the heroes to Infantries and Cavs, to prepare for the Domination Victory:

Additional things that are highlighted on the screen are Mansa having stopped researching and Hatty and Willem researching Techs I'm going to steal from them via Espionage.

This is what I already spoilered and what people suspected, Mansa Musa is an honorless bastard. First, he comes asking nicely if one would protect him, and then, he still tries to win himself by going for Cultural Victory. Vranasm may find this a funny feature, I hate Mansa for this, because now, my backup plan of going for Spacerace, should I not be able to win easily via Domination somehow, is severely crippled.


The round continues further with my economy looking really good 1 turn before the end of the 5th GA:

I really think my empire is set up very well with with half of the cities having Banks, Grocers and Markets, I think I'm rdy for the big crash when the GA ends...

LOL -.-

"That crash is harder than I expected" is the note that I make myself in 925 AD.

Micro is able raise the GPT by a small amount, but problems of that size, can only be solved by Macro meaning I have to set more and more cities to build Wealth again and I have to get to the point where the newest cities have a Courthouse:

Showing the process:

Last screen is from 930 AD which is the 2nd turn after the GA ended, so I made it, no real crash at all, just a rather harsh landing. Anyhow, the economy is at its absolute edge again. I could get some money through cancelling even more Sushi-deals (the reduced maintenance shows I already cancelled some) , but reducing the Food is no option.

Time to look where I am atm. and evaluate my situation:

• I'm at 3M points in 840 AD, with the score still rising with 30k points / turn.
  --> This means, the round is going to last longer than I think, and that I'm going to score higher than I expected.
• My empire is producing 5000 / turn, techs fall one after another.
  --> Maybe I'll still reach Space-colony in time?
• I've lost my only Vassal as a researcher, but I can steal some techs from other Civs through Espionage.
  --> Maybe this will be enough? I have little experience with Victory-types yet because of the small number of games I've finished
• Fighting Darius and Ramesses would get myself in a 2-front-war, fighting Washington won't be enough.
  --> Explaining the need for an overseas invasion if I should decide for Domination.
• I have a tremendous amount of very well set up cities. I could now either use them to produce units and plan for an overseas invasion that will take a huge amount of planning and might be very risky because of me not knowing War Weariness Mechanics in that game, I still have memories of how the war against France almost ruined the round, or, I could simply pull through to Space-colony by building Research wherever possible.
  I don't have produced that many units yet, so I can freely decide.
  --> Speaking against Domination Victory and for Spacerace.

And like that, I decide against my previous decision of going for a Domination Victory and decide that I'm gonna pull through to Space-colony Finish! I don't mind that I've wasted some Gold on upgrading units, those are peanuts compared to the GNP of the huge empire. My only fear is, that the score might drop faster than I expect it to, that's why I won't stop on building units and keep the Domination plan as a backup. Anyhow, my focus has changed. Techs are now prioritized by their need for Space-colony, Research is more important than units.

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

End of part I of the episode "Being married with queen luck" .

Sera

P.S.: It'd be very easy to write this Writeup just like I planned to go for Space-colony from the beginning, but that simply wouldn't have been the true story. I wanted to show honestly how little experience I still had while playing that game, and that the end was somehow like navigating a submarine, not having any sight. There is no calculator with which one could really plan the victory of a round when trying to maximise score, as there is no tool saying "you'll reach the peak in 25 turns" . I just had to decide, I pushed the decision back to the latest possible moment, but from that point on, there were little possibilities of making a turn and still reach out to Domination. I just "hoped" that the empire had the power to build the spaceship early enough, I didn't knew it.

 

[happyturtle]

Why didn't you consider Culture or Time? Just curious.

 

[Seraiel]

Would the Favourite Civic be Free Market or Slavery?

Why didn't you consider Culture or Time? Just curious.

You're confused happyturtle.

Slavery and Free Market are not in the same tab.

I did consider going for Culture, but it would have ment that I'd have had to switch to OR again to get the Missionaries to spread other Religions to 3 cities, and the empire was so hard at its economical edge, that a switch to that Civic would have caused it to go bankrupt, just imagine, that running OR in an empire with a size of almost 10000 population costs more than 1000 .

But plz, time? That'd be in 1000 turns . Don't tell me you didn't recognize that this round was played on Marathon speed .



Sera