Replay #8 4 µ m8s <3

[Seraiel]

This is considering the to conversion rate from Slavery alone.
But there is also the extra commerce from the windmill and the benefit from working an extra tile earlier.
The latter is hard to factor very precisely and is what tips the scales in favour of the windmill for a city around size 10... a city that has happy surplus and that will whip again.

I admit the benefit is marginal for a size 10 city and you may have better things to do with your workers (chopping, improving lower size cities)
For a city below size 5, Windmills have a favourable to conversion rate, compared with Mines, and allow to work more tiles earlier (= even more yields).

Thx for those values. I found the "latter" also hard to understand, what you tried to say was something like and my initial reaction was "that doesn't matter, he / she sees something wrong there" but now I understand what you tried to describe, and it's true, but it's only a very minor factor if i. e. whipping the city always at the same sizes (i. e. 4 -> 2) because the city then only works very few tiles, and the whip is the main source of Hammers, the tiles themselves are imho negliable as the 1 from the windmill is, but yes, you're right.

I don't know the number for Epic&Marathon... knowing the numbers for Normal is enough for my poor memory.

Using your caps (happy & health) allows to unleash a city's potential. In a general manner, maybe you'd do better with more food improvements (incl. farms). See York, Hastings, Liverpool, Brighton, etc.

I already wanted (and probably) will do some math on whips at certain sizes, I'll search first because I think somebody did that already. I think knowing things like this is just the next level.

As a sidenote:
Whips are best timed according to regrowth. Whip = lost yield from whipped tiles. Earlier regrowth = minimized lost yield.
Not sure how aware you are of this.

That's basics BiC. You would have known that I knew this if you were reading Team Kakumeikas SG-thread. Are you doing that already BiC and trying to hide it now? I'm curious because you talk of awareness, should I be aware of something regarding you BiC ? ^^

As another:
I'm not sure you should use one of your larger cities (i.e. Nottingham) to pump missionaries. It may be better off focusing on infrastructure, growing larger, working more tiles or hiring Merchant specialists.
Same way you use "junk" cities to build spies & warriors, missionaries can be built in cities with little production.

Missionaries have very high Hammers : Gold conversion rates. Nottinghma is currently only building 2 Missionaries because I needed them for espionage purposes with Asoka, after that it's getting a Grocer to further multiply the Gold, and past that, it'll produce Missionaries again until Wall Street becomes available. I'm aware of Merchants, additional tiles would be ok as the currents slider-position is low -> Gold but I'm not aware of anything actually paying back better than a Missionary, as a Missionary generates Gold constantly, it's not like Failgold where something gets converted and then is away again. A Missionary in a WS-city is 3 / turn for 40 Hammers (1pop with multipliers) and it doesn't cost anything. Cottage is likely to cost 1 for the pop working it, would therefor at least have to be a village (if non-riverside / non-FIN) so the Missionary pays back a lot faster than the Cottage would do... I know this basically means that with a short game, most land doesn't get worked at all, but well, that's just how it is . Basically all those tiles form Nottingham except the the resources (Food / Iron / Silks) and the Village are all not worth working .

Thank you for this great city-by-city-analysis! Showed me some new things to try out...

I see that you really are a believer in working only above-average tiles. I instinctively start spamming cottages when I feel that my tech rate is taking a plunge, so I'm interested in seeing how well your economy is going to hold up and how far (in techs) it will get you.

My economy will get me towards Communism, and that's all that's needed (Communism lowers maintenance so low and makes the worst crap-cities so unbelievably good, that I find that economy doesn't play any role with it ) .

 

[BornInCantaloup]

That's basics BiC.

So it is Only recently have I started to pay real attention to growth timings... hence my uncertainty.

You would have known that I knew this if you were reading Team Kakumeikas SG-thread. Are you doing that already BiC and trying to hide it now? I'm curious because you talk of awareness, should I be aware of something regarding you BiC ? ^^

No and no.
One team thread is enough for someone like me.

@missionaries: I wasn't saying they were bad builds. I was saying: externalization. Maybe Nottingham should be the place, though I wouldn't know.


Cheers, keep feeding us with a good read

 

[Seraiel]

@ BiC: Nottingham is building the Missionaries, it's the only city having a Monestary and is labeled "Missionary Pump" . I'm sure that you're mixing something up.

Your argumentation for not reading Team Kakumeikas thread btw. is very logical . Good that you understood the fun on that and could laugh.

Seraiel

P.S.: I'll try to begin to write the next update, but I cannot say 'til when it'll be ready. If life doesn't get in my way again, I could imagine it to be online within the next let's say 5h. If life should get in my way, it'll probably take 'til tomorrow.

 

[happyturtle]

I love your writeup of the city screens. Have you thought of doing an article about how to choose city sites and decide how to improve them? I never seem to have a good plan when I try.

 

[Seraiel]

Thank you for this great city-by-city-analysis! Showed me some new things to try out...

This makes me a little nervous. Better don't be me, being onesself I think is superior to being someone else .

I see that you really are a believer in working only above-average tiles. I instinctively start spamming cottages when I feel that my tech rate is taking a plunge, so I'm interested in seeing how well your economy is going to hold up and how far (in techs) it will get you.

I think it's very important to pay attention to the timeline (noticed that WastinTime pays great attention to that from his writeups) . In that analysis of the cities which I wrote it i. e. becomes evident, that Cottages often for me are no good choice, because they take too long to mature / mines are more efficient / windmills are maybe even better than mines / farms seem to rock...

I love your writeup of the city screens. Have you thought of doing an article about how to choose city sites and decide how to improve them? I never seem to have a good plan when I try.

Thx happyturtle... I was very unsure about that part, which can be seen from my reactions to it, you saying you loved it definately makes me feel better about it so is great help.

And yes, I thought about writing such an article. Noone else seemed to be interested but all agreed on that my approach towards it in form of case-studies would be a good way. This is the 3rd time (maybe even the 4th time already) that this crosses my mind, first pangaea asked and told he had problems, than I thought I should write that, than I became unsure, and now you ask again... I'll think about it after having finished this writeup, maybe others will feel themselves inspirated to help with this. We still all are in the Civ Illustrated usergroup and I would be willing to lead an article on this and could provide unbelievable numbers of saves that'll show mostly well managed cities and should be able to cover every possible situation. If noone will, I'll still think about it, then it'll maybe get my work, of course, I'd enjoy working in a team a lot more.

 

[Dalinski]

Regarding your fervent use of slavery. Do you use it right away when your happy cap is low or calculate its use based on how much surplus happiness a city has?

The per city notes with screen shots are really enlightening with intense scrutiny. Cheers!

 

[Seraiel]

I think about whips in the time when the happy-cap is still very low. Generally, this is something more easy for me though, because as a HoF player, I play starts that have at least 1 Happiness resource. I've experienced myself, that starts without any Happiness resource at all are very difficult.

With Calender and in Conquest games, then usually Happicap is so high, that one doesn't have to think about it. I don't understand why one would calculate whips on how much surplus a city has. It plays no role at all, if a city has 8 Happy-faces as a surplus or only 2, what matters is that a city is either Happy or Unhappy. When approaching Happiness-cap, I try to whip larger things to largen the time the city can gegrow and win Happiness-surplus. So by writing this, I know understand what you ment, yes, I whip right away when the happyness-cap is low and I look for the happiness-surplus of a city. City being close to Happy-cap means I have to react by creating a greater timefrime for the city in which it can regrow and while that loose Anger again.

Thx for your words that the city-notes are with intense scrutiny, this is really how I see myself, a scientist, or at least I'm really interested in finding out certain things when I don't know them. I presented, because I thought they'd be interesting for you too.

Seraiel

 

[Nexlev]

I just wanted to chime in and say that I've really enjoyed reading this replay, and seeing all the activity in this thread led me to visit your previous replays which I also enjoyed thoroughly. Even though I don't play HOF or Deity, I've learned quite a few things from these threads, so thanks.

 

[Seraiel]

Next update... I'm tired, but I think it'll help clearing my head...

Ok, not needed anymore, head got just cleared by phaenomenon classified as Giny.

Approaching: Victory.
ETA: 81 turns.

Yes. Now you are like probably.

You know from the war against Lizzy, that it lasted for 34 turns. That war was called Blitzkrieg by some. You know that the war against Lincoln ist mostly (but not completely over) . This gives 1.9 dead Civs / 8.1 alive Civs.

You are asking yourself now, how is it possible, to kill 8 Civs in only 80 turns?

Enjoy!

535 AD: ETA = 81T





Washington wiped out Peter... Therefor, Pacal is now there

550 AD: ETA = 80T





With watching Pacals Bombardement power I calculated how much cultural I had to leave so that Pacal would use up his whole Siege for bombardement in between turns and then would have to attack without the possibility to deal collateral.

565 AD: Eta = 79T

I find it very hard to resist opportunities like this, Washington is basically Pacals city but now I'll get it and will be able to destroy Pacals stack on top. We're not on good terms anyway, and I see no reason why I should comfort him and this will make the following war definately easier.







580 AD: ETA = 78T

Hero fun:











Conquest of Lincolns capital "Washington"



Very bad joke:



Conquest of Oakland:



Pulling Roosevelt in the war against Pacal for further diplopoints:



Bribes like this one are very cheap, therefor favourable, because with me being in war (and with Pacals stack destroyed) , Roosevelt regards Pacal as very "weak" -> cheap bribe.

Discovery of America:



You see that I've begun hunting for huts to get myself Astronomy from it for the case, that it should be needed.

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

I wanted to publish this update for days already and didn't found the time to write what's needed towards the screenshots. If you now remember that it's only 78 turns that this round will still take, this screenshot will make you think:



I find this amazingly fascinating. Though 3/4ths of the turns are over, this screenshot tells that only half of the playtime has been played yet. Maybe this tells you something about the amazing endgame that's already happening. What you saw were 3 turns, Lincoln is basically dead, Peter got fisted by Washington, and the heroes fisted Pacal. But questions that are still there from the last episode are, how will we solve that money problem and will we be able to Lib -> Rifling? Will Methos talk to us or will shulec become a GG sometime?

Read more about that in the next Update of "Replay #8: 4 µ m8tes" .

 

[Seraiel]

Still approaching victory:


595 AD: ETA = 77T





This solves part of our economic problems again. I call it "war-economy" (money through Conquest and peace treaties) .



Further solving the gold-problem.



Just as information. 600 AD for the last Forrests having been removed is very very late and tells something about the great numbers which were there again. Usually, you should try to clearchop the map 'til 1 AD, unless you got good reasons for not doing so.

610 AD: ETA = 76T

Lincolns slaves play into my hands:





Lincoln, finally, dead.

625 AD: ETA = 75T

Getting Gunpowder "for free" :



640 AD: ETA = 74T

A Great Prophet gets born:



New Orleons gets chosen for the Forbidden Palace:



I choose De Gaulle as the next target because his land looks good while Peter's land is really bad, all of this land is still below domination limit, so it'll still help in the Conquest. Good thing about De Gaulle is, he doesn't have Knights yet, that's one of the advantages when playing with "bad" in a setting where the good are more in numbers, nobody really wants to trade with them, therefor they are underdeveloped and can easily be conquered:





655 AD: ETA = 73T

Nothing to report.

670 AD: ETA = 72T

I start the GA:



I switch to REP, Caste and Pacifism to support the GP-production which itself already gets enhanced from the GA. Pacifism showed to be an error or almost-error, because it was really really expensive:



Anyhow, for the books, here is a really nice picture of Bejing making 184 :





Thought that screenshot was also nice to see that I've decided on enforcing the builds of Courthouses, for their awesome Spy-Specialists and because economy will not get better from this point onwards with the growing number of cities.

685 AD: ETA = 71T



Illustrating the not so brilliant choice of switching to Pacifism...



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







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

This is the picture with which I want to end this 2nd update for today. Hope you're all well,

Seraiel

 

[Seraiel]

Cannot find any motivation to play Civ atm.. Tried out the current SGOTM, but it sucked bad. First Barbs fisted me, and then Barbs fisted me... Then the current time-victory which I try to finish since 2 weeks, that just seems impossible, I see no sense in playing games that don't make the slightest fun...

Anyway, good for you, because you're getting the 3rd update for today:

700 AD: ETA = 70T

There's something else making little sense:



De Gaulle moves out with his stack, so he wants to attack, but he's too afraid to attack the heroes? You can believe me, I checked all cities in near range in the savegame because my first thought was "those troops were lured" , but have a look yourself:



Amazing, right? As it looks right now, the French are getting lured by those Red Traffic Lights. Either that, or Kaitzilla really frightened them...

The heroes of course welcome this situation:



Screen also showing the pathetic defenses that De Gaulle has left after this devestating blow of the heroes...

Minor accident: Education got (slightly) traded around, and I didn't check the tech-advisor every turn, so I didn't know if it happened this turn or the one before, and to make long things short: We need a little more money to speed up teching to be 100% on the safe side. Asoka is willing to give us some:



This trade means cautious status (possibility to trade techs) with Asoka against 120g. Now you ask yourself why that possibility is worth so little: Very simple: Tech-trades are not possible anymore: The tech-screen:



WFYBTA from Asoka and Peter means WFYBTA from everybody. Perfect time to look what Espionage is doing:



12k means 6k needed because of the 50% discount that the spy gets when being stationary... But this isn't it. Remember there was a ship called the Doombringer?



Amazing, right?

715 AD: ETA = 69T

The Masked Mossad Agent spreads Judaism to Lahore...



And these are the new Espionage costs:



7600 means 3800 + 60-120 (cost of 1-2 spies) for a tech that'd be worth 5200 ! Remember the screenshot in the last update to remember where Asoka was sitting (far east) and now remember that London is in the very west of the chinese empire and you'll know, that it's almost impossible to create any example that could be more in favour of standard research. The distance between those 2 cities is as great, as it could be, it's basically a max-distance-tech-steal (!) and still, the costs for stealing are significantly lower than the ones for research!
Maybe you're now getting a feel for the power that espionage has in Civ, just think how much more powerful it'd be when the Palace was closer to the target's city and don't forget that Spy-Specialists itself are already more powerful than normal Scientists, and that Nationhood gives another +25% on !

Funny happening btw.:



Funny thing is, French really don't stop in front of Red Traffic Lights, and this one worked even better than thought, it's not even damaged 2 attacks . More interesting though is, why is there a purple circle around that Longbow on that mountain?



TROLOLOLOL!

What you saw was only the 1st part of De Gaulles stack, this one's the 2nd. There is absolutely no choice, I have to conduct a cease-fire:



*sighs*

I hope this woke you up. It's not as boring as it seemed, the AIs are dumb, no question about that, but they're still stronger than thought. Read more about that in the next update. Hope you enjoyed this one,

Seraiel

 

[Apricottage]

What a fascinating game this is. I'm afraid I'm a low-level player, and can only take wins on Immortal (and eke those out with the standard, imbalanced timing attacks such as Elephults or Cuirassiers). I still very much enjoy reading your account of the game. I do see that I need to work a lot on my management of the AI, and I find your use of espionage to be novel. Two questions for you: how much does manually selecting the AIs affect the difficulty of the game? And when precisely do you find that espionage becomes a viable alternative to regular tech?

 

[Kaitzilla]

I'm a sneaky Knight now!

Now that I need to no longer hold a crossbow, I can play my accordion while we invade France.


Link to video.

 

[Seraiel]

What a fascinating game this is. I'm afraid I'm a low-level player, and can only take wins on Immortal (and eke those out with the standard, imbalanced timing attacks such as Elephults or Cuirassiers). I still very much enjoy reading your account of the game. I do see that I need to work a lot on my management of the AI, and I find your use of espionage to be novel. Two questions for you: how much does manually selecting the AIs affect the difficulty of the game? And when precisely do you find that espionage becomes a viable alternative to regular tech?

1. Answering to how much choosing AIs effects the game I'd like to say, that choosing the AIs can be game-changing. I still remember old games of myself when I played against AIs like Hannibal and failed with Quechua-rushing them because they simply had more than 3 times the Archers than that would be normally expected. AIs are definately not equal, and I cannot give values for this like AIX makes the game easier by XX%, but I'm pretty sure that that "Chariot-rush" against Lizzy would have been simply impossible against a unit-spamming AI. Anyhow, that unit-spamming AI.

2. is easy. When = from Alpha onwards. Question is, can espionage get me what I want, which in the case of Machinery i. e. would have been a clear no, same for Education, Liberalism, etc., but basically every other tech past Alpha could (and probably even should) have been aquired by espionage as it's simply the better, cheaper way to aquire techs. Only thing beating espionage is trade because of the mentioned reasons (being that getting a tech through trade can be seen as getting a tech for free under some circumstances) .

I'm a sneaky Knight now!

Now that I need to no longer hold a crossbow, I can play my accordion while we invade France.

Still thinking what I can make out of this... I got you right that you are playing accordion? French love accordion, maybe you playing it may be frightening to them... .

 

[Apricottage]

Thanks for your answers. Do you happen to have a resource you use to identify traits? All I know at the moment are the very general traits, like warmongering and ease of tech trading. The unit building counts had completely flown past me.

I'm looking forward to your next update.

 

[Seraiel]

Click the 2nd link in my signature, the one named "Civ Illustrated" . That one leads to a guide that will tell you everything, and I repeat, everything that you will ever want to know about certain AI leaders .

Next update already 50% complete, so stay tuned .

 

[Apricottage]

Very kind of you. I'm eagerly awaiting the next stage in your journey.

Wow, I really should try playing a game with Hatshepsut. Seems like a load of free wonders waiting for me to claim them...

 

[Seraiel]

Still 715 AD: ETA = 69T

Maybe you asked yourself why I sued for peace anyhow: To understand that, you simply have to look at the screens. The heroes on the last screen I posted are splitted up, some are in Atlanta, some farmed the first half of De Gaulles stack, other proceeded to Rheims, leaving 3 possible targets for De Gaulle to attack, every single one with too little strength to go against the approaching units, but:

With all units teleported back to atlanta, those 3 targets became 1... You probably know what this means already: There is no reason for the cease-fire anymore :



Now will De Gaulle be so nice and attack?



Still 730 AD: ETA = 68T

No, that's not De Gaulle, that's Roosevelt, and he is dreaming again! Now...



No, that's Liberalism...



Yes, Rifling...



Yes, Rifling. Can we plz see De Gaulle now?



You see that team-china has greatly improved, they're now playing together and following orders, I'm not so sure about if it was the right idea to choose Z^3 as a GG though...



Looks like "attack formation big croud" worked better than I thought though, and just in case you asked yourself if 1 Missionary + 1 Spy for the upcoming Espionage Mission wasn't a little too optimistic:



The Doombringer II has arrived and is bringing further doom over Asoka's empire.

Still 745 AD: ETA = 67T



*sighs* . If shulec would just listen... *sighs*

The other heroes are btw. healing after the great farm-action.

Still 760 AD: ETA = 66T

First, De Gaulle GE-rushes and builds the Taj Mahal!



So much to getting that

This opens up the possibility to get Nationalism from Roosevelt though:



Note that this would be a really good trade. Nationalism is very expensive and getting it for those 2 techs would be good as it is already, especially with Roosevelt researching Printing Press. Getting Nationalism still in the Golden Age would also be really good as I then could switch to Nationalism without the empire having to go through Anarchy and getting it now would also be better than later because I could already be drafting Rifles, here is what I do though:





Better than getting Nationalism from Roosevelt would be getting it from Frederick, because he's still backwards, right? Now Frederick doesn't have Nationalism, but he's researching it, and he has Divine Right and could trade with Asoka...

I also had the plan to upgrade the Cho-Ko-Nu's and Maces to Rifles via a GM, but what did I get?



A GS . Chances were about 20% while almost 40% for the GM so bad luck and bad luck, and it's gonna get worse.

Still 775 AD: ETA = 65T

But not yet!

The heroes conquer Rheims!



And with the GA ending, I switch away from pacifism again:



Still 790 AD: ETA = 64T



Roosevelt traded DR for Printing Press with Asoka...

Now Frederick cannot get Nationalism and even worse, Roosevelt decided to research Replaceable Parts, and with that, he's only 1 step away from getting Rifling, which would be a real problem. I must act, and I must act now!

I must kill my friend Roosevelt asap, and I must kill him while being in war with De Gaulle! Him getting Rifling would make things so complicated, that I don't want it. There's no way I'm gonna trade RP for Nationalism with Roosevelt, him having to research RP is the thing that will give me the time to send troops towards him, remember, he's in the very south of the map, that's an extremely long way.

This is how I felt in that situation:



But don't be scared. Savegame is saying "MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAD" which is my form to express "nerdrage" , but outcome is going to be, that I'll... You'll see .

805 AD: ETA = 63T

I pay Roosevelt for Nationalism, getting it after the GA would be even worse because of the multiple turns of Anarchy it would cause:



I can pay sums like that because of this:



And because it was the last turn of the GA, I switch to final Civics, Drafting + Whipping FTW:



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

I hope you found this part more worthy than the past ones. Basically writing is something that has to be done every day to be really good at it. I hope that I've recovered well from the break.

Seraiel

 

[kovacsflo]

So this is still an ongoing game? Couldn't read it all, just to clarify:

1. Are you playing it with barbs at all?

2. You have mentioned bcool strategy. What is that?

3. And most of all a more general question: why don't you aim to play games which require less time? Most of my games are less than 15 hours, and I just couldn't spend more time of one certain game.

4. This is a huge/epic=conquest game, but this slot is already yours in HoF table. So why don't you play with different settings?

 

[Seraiel]

So this is still an ongoing game? Couldn't read it all, just to clarify:

1. Are you playing it with barbs at all?

2. You have mentioned bcool strategy. What is that?

3. And most of all a more general question: why don't you aim to play games which require less time? Most of my games are less than 15 hours, and I just couldn't spend more time of one certain game.

4. This is a huge/epic=conquest game, but this slot is already yours in HoF table. So why don't you play with different settings?

Hi flo

1. No

2. bccool-"technique" is fun:

And with this, it's official: bcool achieved his dream to become a legend! The "bcool-technique" gets written down in the chinese history-books as the technique to "look extremely good in fights that are actually way too easy to just be won and therefor should be made more complicated to bring more joy to the spectators" .

This was what I wrote after the ingame-bcool(-unit) lost like 2 battles with 9x%+ odds.

3. Part of me is being perfectionist. I hate it when I notice making mistakes, that's why I play so slowly that I suffer myself from that sometimes .

4. This is the writeup towards the game you saw in the HoF ^^ .