Role Play Challenge: Stagnation!

[CivCorpse]

Mocha statues 1SW of the iron
Has the fish for food, and to can workshop the little island

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I played this out after all. Three reasons:

1. Vicawoo harassed me into it. 19th mile indeed ^_^. Where was I in the game relative to that?! Oh well.

2. In discussing the strategy for this game, everyone and their mother's uncle told Mad "no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals ".

I proceeded to point out that vassals could be viable and potentially useful in a game like this. The response to that?

"no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals". Not having it! I said I'd prove it so I guess I'd better prove it. Or, at least TRY to .

3. !#@$!% I'm TMIT ------> I finish games and finish them quickly. Leaving one in limbo can cause me physical damage, unless it happens to be APG Shaka . Even that one got finished though. Eventually.

1497...1498...1499...1500 end turns later:

Spoiler :

All that said, this round isn't going to be to exciting. Rather stagnant in fact. Hatty arbitrarily left culture, prompting me to DoW her earlier than planned to ensure that the war took roughly 0 effort, micro, or thought. This meant around, say 1928. I burned her top FIVE culture cities then took peace. Modern armor vs infantry that are at 1/2 health from jet fighter/carrier beatings..........really challenging, yes? No.

I automated everything. Evertying. Even what cities build. ZZZZZZZZzz. Cathy had the best tech rate and would have challenged for space, except that before teching fiber optics or fusion she mysteriously beelined future tech and stayed there .

Nobody was a threat for culture. Hatty got a space part or two herself but never got all the needed techs prior to time expiring:

Ok. Now look. See? I HAVE NOT ONE BUT FIVE VASSALS. FIVE. Some of them quite competent (well, not really, but truthfully they never are and cathy is as close as you'll see mostly). What purpose did they serve? Eating up space without putting me over dom land, that's what. Now, let's look carefully at how close I was to losing because of vassals:

Pretty easy to block space. Especially since I had well over 300,000 espionage on cathy, just in case I needed to sabotage an entire damn ship. Never needed to, stealing techs from me was pretty hard for her.

VCs:

Hmmmm. After burning hatty's top 5 cities, guess what? Even now my vassals aren't on the radar. Let's see why:

Cathy's best city. I sure feel threatened by culture. You saw izzy's in the last segment. Well, I used the UN to try to pass FR a lot, which izzy, hatty, and zara would defy for a long time. Izzy got kicked down to pop 1 for her entire empire for a long time. She's even further back than cathy.

Of course, Zara lost his cities very late and the other 2 don't even have 3 cities...so, no.

Hatty's #3 city:

Useless. Over 1000 turns to go to legendary.

Long game.

BY FAR, THE MOST ******** POINT IN THIS GAME WAS GLOBAL WARMING. Global warming is pretend fairy magic streaming from a body part of Al Gore's not worth mentioning on the civ forums. It's BS of the worst kind, and it has nothing to do with bulbing in this case. I'd have had well over 10000 BPT and a couple more future techs if not for GW (though I didn't try to optimize research until about 70 turns left).

About 1/4 of my entire land changed into desert. Ok, now lets see the conditions under which this !@#%#@%ing nonsense occurs:

1. Zero unhealth. That's right. Not an unhealthy city in the entire e!@#$ world. Anywhere. At all. Not in my empire, not in anyone elses.

2. Massive recycling centers and future tech > 50, I wonder if maybe pollution's a little less than in real life? Nono, guess not.

3. GLOBAL WARMING DOESNT TURN THINGS INTO DESERT AND ONLY DESERT. AT LEAST NOT REALISTIC GLOBAL WARMING.

Basically, there's no late-game prevention of a mechanic that's essentially broken in cause and result. I had one of the healthiest planets ever, and yet post 2000 GW was striking on a monthly (!) basis, and more than once it struck in 3 consecutive turns...and that's just within my territory. This is definitely a flawed mechanic and frankly I'm almost as appalled with fireaxis for leaving it in like this as I am about them choosing to lie to players using the game interface, which it does.

Anyway, there's a time win. Without wiping a single civ out. With 5 vassals. So yes, it can be done and they make it easier, not harder.

 

[UWHabs]

I played this out after all. Three reasons:

1. Vicawoo harassed me into it. 19th mile indeed ^_^. Where was I in the game relative to that?! Oh well.

2. In discussing the strategy for this game, everyone and their mother's uncle told Mad "no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals ".

I proceeded to point out that vassals could be viable and potentially useful in a game like this. The response to that?

"no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals no vassals". Not having it! I said I'd prove it so I guess I'd better prove it. Or, at least TRY to .

3. !#@$!% I'm TMIT ------> I finish games and finish them quickly. Leaving one in limbo can cause me physical damage, unless it happens to be APG Shaka . Even that one got finished though. Eventually.

1497...1498...1499...1500 end turns later:

Spoiler :

All that said, this round isn't going to be to exciting. Rather stagnant in fact. Hatty arbitrarily left culture, prompting me to DoW her earlier than planned to ensure that the war took roughly 0 effort, micro, or thought. This meant around, say 1928. I burned her top FIVE culture cities then took peace. Modern armor vs infantry that are at 1/2 health from jet fighter/carrier beatings..........really challenging, yes? No.

I automated everything. Evertying. Even what cities build. ZZZZZZZZzz. Cathy had the best tech rate and would have challenged for space, except that before teching fiber optics or fusion she mysteriously beelined future tech and stayed there .

Nobody was a threat for culture. Hatty got a space part or two herself but never got all the needed techs prior to time expiring:

Ok. Now look. See? I HAVE NOT ONE BUT FIVE VASSALS. FIVE. Some of them quite competent (well, not really, but truthfully they never are and cathy is as close as you'll see mostly). What purpose did they serve? Eating up space without putting me over dom land, that's what. Now, let's look carefully at how close I was to losing because of vassals:

Pretty easy to block space. Especially since I had well over 300,000 espionage on cathy, just in case I needed to sabotage an entire damn ship. Never needed to, stealing techs from me was pretty hard for her.

VCs:

Hmmmm. After burning hatty's top 5 cities, guess what? Even now my vassals aren't on the radar. Let's see why:

Cathy's best city. I sure feel threatened by culture. You saw izzy's in the last segment. Well, I used the UN to try to pass FR a lot, which izzy, hatty, and zara would defy for a long time. Izzy got kicked down to pop 1 for her entire empire for a long time. She's even further back than cathy.

Of course, Zara lost his cities very late and the other 2 don't even have 3 cities...so, no.

Hatty's #3 city:

Useless. Over 1000 turns to go to legendary.

Long game.

BY FAR, THE MOST ******** POINT IN THIS GAME WAS GLOBAL WARMING. Global warming is pretend fairy magic streaming from a body part of Al Gore's not worth mentioning on the civ forums. It's BS of the worst kind, and it has nothing to do with bulbing in this case. I'd have had well over 10000 BPT and a couple more future techs if not for GW (though I didn't try to optimize research until about 70 turns left).

About 1/4 of my entire land changed into desert. Ok, now lets see the conditions under which this !@#%#@%ing nonsense occurs:

1. Zero unhealth. That's right. Not an unhealthy city in the entire e!@#$ world. Anywhere. At all. Not in my empire, not in anyone elses.

2. Massive recycling centers and future tech > 50, I wonder if maybe pollution's a little less than in real life? Nono, guess not.

3. GLOBAL WARMING DOESNT TURN THINGS INTO DESERT AND ONLY DESERT. AT LEAST NOT REALISTIC GLOBAL WARMING.

Basically, there's no late-game prevention of a mechanic that's essentially broken in cause and result. I had one of the healthiest planets ever, and yet post 2000 GW was striking on a monthly (!) basis, and more than once it struck in 3 consecutive turns...and that's just within my territory. This is definitely a flawed mechanic and frankly I'm almost as appalled with fireaxis for leaving it in like this as I am about them choosing to lie to players using the game interface, which it does.

Anyway, there's a time win. Without wiping a single civ out. With 5 vassals. So yes, it can be done and they make it easier, not harder.

A few observations that probably aren't really spoiler worthy, but just in case...

Spoiler :

Damn, that's close to the domination limit, though. I guess as long as you're careful, at that point, stealing a few tiles here or there could put you over the edge.

Also, about GW, maybe the fact that there were probably no forests left on the planet at the end causes it. There should be some sort of improvement like the National Park, but for every city, to give forests like +1 food and +3 trade or something, to encourage people to keep them. Even something as drastic as not giving any bonus for chopping a forest that's not in the 9 tiles surrounding your city.

Heck, or just have a "plant forest" once you hit ecology. A "planted forest" maybe can't be chopped (or can't be chopped for production), but would at least prevent global warming.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

A few observations that probably aren't really spoiler worthy, but just in case...

Spoiler :

Damn, that's close to the domination limit, though. I guess as long as you're careful, at that point, stealing a few tiles here or there could put you over the edge.

Also, about GW, maybe the fact that there were probably no forests left on the planet at the end causes it. There should be some sort of improvement like the National Park, but for every city, to give forests like +1 food and +3 trade or something, to encourage people to keep them. Even something as drastic as not giving any bonus for chopping a forest that's not in the 9 tiles surrounding your city.

Heck, or just have a "plant forest" once you hit ecology. A "planted forest" maybe can't be chopped (or can't be chopped for production), but would at least prevent global warming.

Spoiler :

Or, they could just do away with this shameful attempt at it entirely, until they can balance it or make the effects realistic.

On dominations threshold -----> I actually was over 63% at one point. I checked it very frequently after the izzy/zara conquests for a while. I wound up avoiding domination by gifting zara one of his cities back. I could have easily done the same with izzy or cathy (or even asoka!) but didn't need to. Another nice thing about vassals...

 

[Stuck in Pi]

I could not do that. I can't do it. I'd love to shadow, but I just couldn't do it. Not 1500 turns of enter. No. I can't...

 

[TheMeInTeam]

I could not do that. I can't do it. I'd love to shadow, but I just couldn't do it. Not 1500 turns of enter. No. I can't...

OVER FIVE HOURS (5:19). The last 700 turns or so really burned my soul.

I wish you luck, mad. The sheer amount of input required for this is a special kind of challenge.

 

[vicawoo]

See don't you feel a sense of accomplishment for having completed the task? And you encountered several marathon/time factors, such as global warming, which you wouldn't have otherwise.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

Indeed it is so. Being a warmonger I'd seldom seen just how bad it can get. Now I understand all the better...

 

[Joshua368]

Heh, everyone was saying what a "meh" start is was and then you got two grassland gems.

 

[Jabah]

With this 'isolated' start with several island within reach, you should try to build the Gr Lighthouse....

 

[DMOC]

OVER FIVE HOURS (5:19). The last 700 turns or so really burned my soul.

I wish you luck, mad. The sheer amount of input required for this is a special kind of challenge.

I usually hit the 5 hour mark by 1-500 AD....wow.... and I play Epic.

 

[BakingTheArt]

TMIT, you play games to 2050 on emperor on Marathon are shorter than the the ames I play to 1500-ish on Prince. Bah.

 

[semirami]

@ BtA

This is Monarch and TMIT is AFAIK immortal player.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

@ BtA

This is Monarch and TMIT is AFAIK immortal player.

Play speed only varies slightly with difficulty (maybe 20 mins quicker below my level). In fact, I usually don't notice much difference between quick and epic, but marathon is a different animal.

I only recently started playing immortal with some consistency ----> I'm not 50% wins on immortal yet, unless you're willing to count the ridiculously cheesy HoF submissions, but I'm not willing to do that.

I'm sure mad will show us a thing or two also here! He's a lot more experienced with marathon than I am (as I implied earlier, barring early or constant warfare marathon tries my patience).

 

[madscientist]

Stagnation!: Part II

As we grind out our game, Mehmed certainly looks to be setting a very strong homebase VERY fast!!!! Expansive and Organized, what a combo. Well, Organized and anything is amazing if you ask me

First the almighty techpath: fishing/meditation/Priesthood/writing/sailing/Aesthetics/Monarchy/Masonry/Polytheism/Literature and saved there. What, no currecy??? Well who needs it! Let's see why

We start by settling city #3 to claim the best of the iron sources.

Also hence why I went fihing first this segment.

And we meet our first leader.

I don't know why Gilgamesh has his nose covered like that, perhaps he smeels the reek of some stagnant water or something!

What we did find is that he's pretty close, close enough to having some culture move onto the Ottoman homebase.

Well, he seams to be behind in tech as he was teching sailing pretty late in the segment.

And the next part of Mehmed's grand plan

Which we used to

Now, Gilgamesh is the Hindu founder so I avoided adopting Confuscianism as the state religion as I really want to delay wars until I at least get Janissaries (Now that Sulieman game was just plain old fun!).

Soon we popped the Great Prophet (Stonehenge and Oracle in one city are a great way to get an early shrined religion).

You bet, we shrined Confuscianism.

We then started to set up a few more cities

Yes, once we get our fast lighthouse and granery setup we shall build the Moari Statues here!

The next city was the Barbarian city

Since it was established I kept the city and decided to use another city in the jungle to capture the horses.

Finally, one of our new cities get's Hinduism spread to it

And we adopt Hinduism.

After Monarchy we change civics

With Gilgamesh's favored civic HR I expect a loyal friend there right up to the time where we stab in the back to prevent him from winning.

Our last city this segment

Popping the borders FAST with an artist specialist and the free monument, we immediately get horses for production. While in the middle of a jungle I expect teh city to be very good. In fact, all of Mehmed's city sites are A-1, too bad Fred and Mehmed's starts were not reversed.

And just before the save we meet the second AI

Watch your backs folks! Well she is Hindu and favorite civic is HR also!

So at the save

I say three more cities here. One to the SW to claim the wine and two along the NE coast!

Diplomatically

The Hindu love fest has begun!

And demographics

OK, so things are crusing right along. Stagnation means not doing much, so my plan is to sit and relax right up until someone appears to be taking a lead. Cranking out a massive homebase sounds fine by me!

Tasks

1) More workers. Seriously, I know my weakpoint but Mehmed is expansive.

2) Settle 3-4 more cities (perhaps the west coast also.

3) Some more troops I think. I trust Cathy as far as I can throw her.

4) Spread the good faith of confuscianism for some good hard cash! Hinduism is fine to keep the neighbors happy, but Confuscianism makes the Ottoman world go round!

5) I guess I need send a few boats arround to find exactly what my neighbors are up to.

6) Great Library and NAtional epic in the capital. Farm those grasslands.

7) The riverside cities get cottaged like crazy right now.

Enough for now, Mehmed's off to take a nap.

 

[TheMeInTeam]

What's to fear from cathy if she likes you and there's nobody to bribe her?

 

[CivCorpse]

We then started to set up a few more cities

Yes, once we get our fast lighthouse and granery setup we shall build the Moari Statues here!

This pleases US. We approve

 

[Shadowcrow]

Nuke are probably going to be fairly key. Otherwise it maybe a bit hard to stall and stop the AI from winning other victories without triggering Conquest or Dom victories.

 

[Killroyan]

I would propably settle the SE part of the island quickly or Gilgamesh might start settling there too. The AI have an annoying tendency to settle your land before they settle their own land. But the land looks solid. It will be a long game but at least with a good start.

 

[Bed]

omg build the great lighthouse asap! and like 10 workers... before even thinking of settling new cities