Genghis_Kai
GEM modder
This is making more sense now. Yes, I've experienced the 'carry over' diplomatic status of the new nations before. So this is something to do with BTS, not GEM (i.e. not my problem
).
Scenario: 1500AD on GEM
- Thread starter Genghis_Kai
- Start date
This is making more sense now. Yes, I've experienced the 'carry over' diplomatic status of the new nations before. So this is something to do with BTS, not GEM (i.e. not my problem
).Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
Some news fremom my current game (still playing the English). I'm now at 1982 AD and progressing towards domination victory, having recently finished the tech tree, I'm in a solid lead in tech, score and power.
China is a strong second, with 3800 score to my 5200, and about 80% of my power - they have 10 Vassals as well. The Spanish Empire (they were leader in score briefly, having 10 Vassals as well) crumbled in the late 1800s when I started to conquer southern america while china eliminated their asian vassal - mughal - from the game and conquered france and the iberian peninsula, while the spanish vassals - morocco, zimbabwe, ethiopia - conquered africa beneath them from songhay and portogese, breaking free in the process.
Currently, Ming and their vassals control almost all of asia and europe, with the exception of the hungarian empire, stretching from Berlin to Jerusalem (the hungarians are third in score, having vassalized turkey and arabia) and two cities in France and Portugal, which I conquered. They have just researched industrialism, but seem to run out of smaller countries to attack, so it seems the final confrontation between me and the Ming is imminent.
My own English Empire encompasses the entirety of Northern, Meso- and Southern America, and I have just begun to conquer Africa, eliminating the Moroccans in 1980 and currently marching on Zimbabwe, which will be followed by Ethiopia - time to absorb these currently independent Nations before China does. Warfare has become extremely swift now, with Modern Armor moving four tiles and blitzing, cutting deep into enemy territory and possibly eliminating four defenders per turn. Stealth bomber range seems to be a bit low (realistically, they have an extremely high op range), however there are rnough cities and forts around to have enough of them near a strike target 90% of the time.
Maybe I can post some screenshots later. I need 51% land and 51% population for domination, however I have currently only achieved about 35% of population and 25% of land. Hopefully adding Africa to my empire will improve these ratios... however, I think these values are rather harsh for such a gigantic map. Maybe you could lower them slightly?
A really impressive feature of a large empire are the corporations, since they scale like "cities * ressources". Currently, Cereal Mills provides 14 Food and Mining Inc provides 30 hammers... in my empire - now combine this with the really cool 1-food merchant specialists, and you can found a city in the desert, which - without working any tile - will...
...grow to pop 16
...generate 32 food [ 2 (base) + 14 (cereal mills) + 16 (merchants) ]
...generate 30 hammers (mining inc)
...generate 48 gold (without modifiers, this makes up for corporation maintenance)
...generate 48 beakers (in Representation)
...generate 32 culture (with Sistine Chapel)
Now this would almost make city spamming viable... even more so since the limiting factor to city growth for me right now is mostly health and happiness, I have a lot of cities in the 30s which otherwise could easily grow to 40+, and even one city with 52 pop (national park + globe theatre).
Best Regards,
Ace
China is a strong second, with 3800 score to my 5200, and about 80% of my power - they have 10 Vassals as well. The Spanish Empire (they were leader in score briefly, having 10 Vassals as well) crumbled in the late 1800s when I started to conquer southern america while china eliminated their asian vassal - mughal - from the game and conquered france and the iberian peninsula, while the spanish vassals - morocco, zimbabwe, ethiopia - conquered africa beneath them from songhay and portogese, breaking free in the process.
Currently, Ming and their vassals control almost all of asia and europe, with the exception of the hungarian empire, stretching from Berlin to Jerusalem (the hungarians are third in score, having vassalized turkey and arabia) and two cities in France and Portugal, which I conquered. They have just researched industrialism, but seem to run out of smaller countries to attack, so it seems the final confrontation between me and the Ming is imminent.
My own English Empire encompasses the entirety of Northern, Meso- and Southern America, and I have just begun to conquer Africa, eliminating the Moroccans in 1980 and currently marching on Zimbabwe, which will be followed by Ethiopia - time to absorb these currently independent Nations before China does. Warfare has become extremely swift now, with Modern Armor moving four tiles and blitzing, cutting deep into enemy territory and possibly eliminating four defenders per turn. Stealth bomber range seems to be a bit low (realistically, they have an extremely high op range), however there are rnough cities and forts around to have enough of them near a strike target 90% of the time.
Maybe I can post some screenshots later. I need 51% land and 51% population for domination, however I have currently only achieved about 35% of population and 25% of land. Hopefully adding Africa to my empire will improve these ratios... however, I think these values are rather harsh for such a gigantic map. Maybe you could lower them slightly?
A really impressive feature of a large empire are the corporations, since they scale like "cities * ressources". Currently, Cereal Mills provides 14 Food and Mining Inc provides 30 hammers... in my empire - now combine this with the really cool 1-food merchant specialists, and you can found a city in the desert, which - without working any tile - will...
...grow to pop 16
...generate 32 food [ 2 (base) + 14 (cereal mills) + 16 (merchants) ]
...generate 30 hammers (mining inc)
...generate 48 gold (without modifiers, this makes up for corporation maintenance)
...generate 48 beakers (in Representation)
...generate 32 culture (with Sistine Chapel)
Now this would almost make city spamming viable... even more so since the limiting factor to city growth for me right now is mostly health and happiness, I have a lot of cities in the 30s which otherwise could easily grow to 40+, and even one city with 52 pop (national park + globe theatre).
Best Regards,
Ace
Sounds like great fun!
I appreciate the information you are providing as it will be helpful in the game I want to play after my current one.
One key feature which is driving the merchant mechanic is the reduction in the value in playing a Financial leader caused by the lack of commerce from sea tiles. It is really crippling my Incan game atm (Fin/Ind is worthless when all the wonders have been built and sea tiles yield 1c not 3c).
I would have assumed however that using corporations would be an economic disaster unless you own the HQ. Do you own Venice and the other HQ? On such a large map I was planning on using State Property for the cost reductions.
Please also provide screens as what I have found in my game only in the middle 1600 is Hungarians are proving to be a powerhouse as well.
I appreciate the information you are providing as it will be helpful in the game I want to play after my current one.
One key feature which is driving the merchant mechanic is the reduction in the value in playing a Financial leader caused by the lack of commerce from sea tiles. It is really crippling my Incan game atm (Fin/Ind is worthless when all the wonders have been built and sea tiles yield 1c not 3c).
I would have assumed however that using corporations would be an economic disaster unless you own the HQ. Do you own Venice and the other HQ? On such a large map I was planning on using State Property for the cost reductions.
Please also provide screens as what I have found in my game only in the middle 1600 is Hungarians are proving to be a powerhouse as well.
Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
Some older screenshots.
a) 1826 AD: I managed to move my capital to the New World, saving me from economic collapse. Spain is on the rise.
b) 1838 AD: Europe; note the Papal Empire. Venice flipped to Pius due to Rome's culture.
c) 1895 AD: Note the impressive list of vassals from Isabella. This is shortly before England and China declare war on her.
a) 1826 AD: I managed to move my capital to the New World, saving me from economic collapse. Spain is on the rise.
b) 1838 AD: Europe; note the Papal Empire. Venice flipped to Pius due to Rome's culture.
c) 1895 AD: Note the impressive list of vassals from Isabella. This is shortly before England and China declare war on her.
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Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
Some more recent screenshots:
a) 1932 AD: Chinese Vassals; The Ming have taken the score lead.
b) 1952 AD: Europe; Spain has conquered Rome but is starting to get steamrolled by China, the Hungarian Empire rises.
c) 1977 AD: Southern America; I am leader in score, the custom interface is BUG mod.
more to come soon.
a) 1932 AD: Chinese Vassals; The Ming have taken the score lead.
b) 1952 AD: Europe; Spain has conquered Rome but is starting to get steamrolled by China, the Hungarian Empire rises.
c) 1977 AD: Southern America; I am leader in score, the custom interface is BUG mod.
more to come soon.
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Genghis_Kai
GEM modder
Sounds like great fun!
Really appreciate how you do the math for us related to my changes on +1 food / merchant, -1 coin / sea tile etc. and how you can use the corporations in GEM. That really is eyes opening for me. I never really use the corporations myself except treating it just as modern religions.
Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
And it was. I finally won, after 45 hours and 45 minutes of game time, which has to be the longest game of civ I ever played. It took me till 2005 AD to get a domination victory.
In the end, the world was just about divided between England and China, with the Ming having 14 (!) vassals. The only free nations left a few turns before the end were tiny France (which had about 5 cities left in Australia) and Tonga (they never really did anything... neither attacked anyone nor were they attacked).
The tough part of the domination victory proved to be territory - I easily got to almost two thirds of world population, but I really had to push hard for 50% of the land controlled, even founding cities way north in the ice desert.
In the end, I could avoid to battle China and its satellites for the last two percent, but instead decided to conquer France, which pushed me over the edge. To battle China would have been nasty, since combined with their vassal's armies they could match mine in power - and my territory had really long borders, which were sometimes poorly defended. Even though I had almost 300 ICBMs waiting for deployment, China had just built SDI and become a nuclear power themselves. The only two nukes I ever used in the game were against the hungarian army on my own territory, both times eliminating stacks of about 30 units that had invaded my borders.
All in all, it was a game of truly grand scope. I attached some screenshots:
a) The largest city I ever built in civ... size 60, and almost 100,000,000 inhabitants. It could have grown to size 79, but there simply was not enough time for that.
b) Financial Advisor; showing my commerce in detail. Almost all of the city maintenance derives from corporation payments.
c) Corporation Advisor; displaying the insane amount of corporation gains... 49 hammers and 21 food per city, turning even the most unproductive sites into powerhouse cities. Cereal Mills is actually much better than Sushi in this Scenario, since there are more Rice/Wheat/Corn ressources.
d) Info Screen; you can see I have almost 10 times the GDP of the second, which is because I run corporations while the Ming run state property. Same for production and food, of course. 1.3 billion population is also the highes number I ever got in any game, as well as 40 million soldiers.
e) Score Graph; the rise and fall of several great powers. Especially Spain and Hungary did exceed my expectations, while China was not so much a surprise.
f) Replay Map; shows me controlling all of America, Africa, most of Europe (I had six cities flip to me there from culture) and some territory on the southern tip of India as well as eastern Australia.
g) Final Score; i'm amazed it is that high even though it took me till 2005 AD to win.
Now, as this took up most of my spare time last week (and some of my sleep, too) I guess I will take a break from actively playing civ this week. However, It was great fun and just the kind of game experience I was looking for... vast empires and epic battles.
Best Regards,
Ace
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Genghis_Kai
GEM modder
Wow! The numbers are impressive
I wonder anyone EVER achieved this kind of populations and income in Civ 4!You are earning $18000 per turn! So I suppose you can almost build anything you like instantly? (With the correct civic that allows you to buy things).
And what kind of waiting time between turns is needed for your game towards the end?
Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
You are correct, I could have probably switched to universal suffrage in the late game to make use of my huge cash pool. However, I was still running Representation for the beaker bonus - I guess I would have lost about 10000 beakers if I had switched.
By the time my income skyrocketed that much, there was not much left for me to buy... I was producing Wealth/Research in most of my cities, and military units in some, while developing the infrastructure in the smaller and newly captured cities. With even the smallest and most undeveloped cities having 50 production/turn due to corporations, there is not much need to rush things... so I basically got lazy and just let the cash reserve build up. Too bad there's no economic victory like "Get 1.000.000 in Gold reserves" ;-)
Since I have a savegame where I just have to hit "end turn" to win, I might just try and change it to get more accurate numbers.
The civics I ran for the whole length of the game were:
Representation/Free Speech/Caste System/Free Market/Pacifism (second half: Organized Religion).
Especially Caste System proved difficult sometimes, as I got up to 15 unhappy faces in my cities from not running Emancipation. It is, however, absolutely crucial, as it allows me to run unlimited merchant specialists. That's one reason my culture slider is that high, it basically never went below 60% since the 1700s, sometimes I even set it to 80% when I had to fight a longer military campaign. Most of the research and gold comes from specialists anyway, and I never found espionage that helpful.
Waiting times were about 60 to 180 seconds on my machine, at least that's what it felt like - I did not use a stop watch though. Some turns - especially those with extensive warfare - took me about 20 to 30 minutes to micromanage my armies and production though.
I experienced a lot of crashes, but I guess this was basically due to my graphics settings being to high - at least that's what the game kept telling me. In the end, the game crashed every 4 or 5 turns. I will probably have to install some low-res textures for the next game.
Keeping autosaves from every turn does sure help, I would advise everyone playing this mod to do so, since the turns take really long and it's not funny to lose an hour of "work" if something unforeseen happens, because it took you just that long to play the last four turns.
Best Regards,
Ace
By the time my income skyrocketed that much, there was not much left for me to buy... I was producing Wealth/Research in most of my cities, and military units in some, while developing the infrastructure in the smaller and newly captured cities. With even the smallest and most undeveloped cities having 50 production/turn due to corporations, there is not much need to rush things... so I basically got lazy and just let the cash reserve build up. Too bad there's no economic victory like "Get 1.000.000 in Gold reserves" ;-)
Since I have a savegame where I just have to hit "end turn" to win, I might just try and change it to get more accurate numbers.
The civics I ran for the whole length of the game were:
Representation/Free Speech/Caste System/Free Market/Pacifism (second half: Organized Religion).
Especially Caste System proved difficult sometimes, as I got up to 15 unhappy faces in my cities from not running Emancipation. It is, however, absolutely crucial, as it allows me to run unlimited merchant specialists. That's one reason my culture slider is that high, it basically never went below 60% since the 1700s, sometimes I even set it to 80% when I had to fight a longer military campaign. Most of the research and gold comes from specialists anyway, and I never found espionage that helpful.
Waiting times were about 60 to 180 seconds on my machine, at least that's what it felt like - I did not use a stop watch though. Some turns - especially those with extensive warfare - took me about 20 to 30 minutes to micromanage my armies and production though.
I experienced a lot of crashes, but I guess this was basically due to my graphics settings being to high - at least that's what the game kept telling me. In the end, the game crashed every 4 or 5 turns. I will probably have to install some low-res textures for the next game.
Keeping autosaves from every turn does sure help, I would advise everyone playing this mod to do so, since the turns take really long and it's not funny to lose an hour of "work" if something unforeseen happens, because it took you just that long to play the last four turns.
Best Regards,
Ace
I am in the middle of a game atm too. No crashes on my machine Pentium-D 3ghz Geforce 7800 GTX (except MAF).
Playing on Prince which I think I regret and may start over today on Monarch as the AI is not aggressive enough toward me.
Hungary is a power in my game as well (only in the 1700's atm).
Key note: Playing a financial is really crippled in this scenario. The reduction from 2c to 1c in water really hampers financial civs early game. Cottages being so vulnerable also limits there widespread use. Combine this with no "bonus" on any building makes it very rough.
I too am choosing the Freemarket/Pacifism route in my game, cost of Pacifism on military units is minor as it does not scale to the size of yoru economy. Corporations + Phil leader is very powerful in this scenario.
Tried Ican on noble first (technology handicapp is too large).
Currently playing England on Prince, my game is trending like yours (own all Ican lands "very powerful", 40% of the Americas, etc.. and I might restart with a different country.
Another thing I did was research Chemistry first and deploy 20 Privateers. The AI really struggles with this strategy, Bristol's Dock made it easy.
I do think a "fix" is needed to help Financial civs a bit.
Playing on Prince which I think I regret and may start over today on Monarch as the AI is not aggressive enough toward me.
Hungary is a power in my game as well (only in the 1700's atm).
Key note: Playing a financial is really crippled in this scenario. The reduction from 2c to 1c in water really hampers financial civs early game. Cottages being so vulnerable also limits there widespread use. Combine this with no "bonus" on any building makes it very rough.
I too am choosing the Freemarket/Pacifism route in my game, cost of Pacifism on military units is minor as it does not scale to the size of yoru economy. Corporations + Phil leader is very powerful in this scenario.
Tried Ican on noble first (technology handicapp is too large).
Currently playing England on Prince, my game is trending like yours (own all Ican lands "very powerful", 40% of the Americas, etc.. and I might restart with a different country.
Another thing I did was research Chemistry first and deploy 20 Privateers. The AI really struggles with this strategy, Bristol's Dock made it easy.
I do think a "fix" is needed to help Financial civs a bit.
Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
I absolutely support this. My ideas would be to either increase total commerce in all cities by 15% or add +1 trade to each plot with at least 1 trade (instead of 2).
This would preserve the bonus from sea tiles as well as adding it to river tiles and windmills. Cottages are kind of useless now, anyway...
Best Regards,
Ace
Playable Civilizations in 1500AD?
I know I should not beat my head against a brick wall
but I can't help myself. Yes I could make almost any country work if I shifted down to Chieftain, but then it would be no challenge. Right now playing this map on Prince.
On the side of "Christ" there are several playable civilizations (English, Spain, HRE, Poland, Russia, France, Hungary) England is easily the most powerful because it can expand easily without having to defend its borders from attack and is Phil + Redcoats.
For Mohammad we may have only two possibilities, Arabia (have not tried yet) and maybe Ottoman’s (I tried on Prince stalemated pretty early).
To the East, there is only China. Poked around Japan but the colonization rules of Civ 4 make starting on an island ugly. My Japanese possessions in South America (Inca) and Australia quickly crippled the weak Japanese economy.
Now I know historically this is accurate, but from a game play mechanic what few tweaks can be done to permit a chance of success.
I think the Ottoman’s could prove quite a bit more robust without being overpowered, with a few changes (more barracks, some upgraded Janissaries, a couple of workers etc..).
Anyone have experiences with the underdog Civilizations that could provide a rewarding game play experience?
For fun… I may tweak the Ottoman’s a bit, not sure if they can possibly survive the eventual squeeze between China and the eventual “western” leader.
I know I should not beat my head against a brick wall
but I can't help myself. Yes I could make almost any country work if I shifted down to Chieftain, but then it would be no challenge. Right now playing this map on Prince. On the side of "Christ" there are several playable civilizations (English, Spain, HRE, Poland, Russia, France, Hungary) England is easily the most powerful because it can expand easily without having to defend its borders from attack and is Phil + Redcoats.
For Mohammad we may have only two possibilities, Arabia (have not tried yet) and maybe Ottoman’s (I tried on Prince stalemated pretty early).
To the East, there is only China. Poked around Japan but the colonization rules of Civ 4 make starting on an island ugly. My Japanese possessions in South America (Inca) and Australia quickly crippled the weak Japanese economy.
Now I know historically this is accurate, but from a game play mechanic what few tweaks can be done to permit a chance of success.
I think the Ottoman’s could prove quite a bit more robust without being overpowered, with a few changes (more barracks, some upgraded Janissaries, a couple of workers etc..).
Anyone have experiences with the underdog Civilizations that could provide a rewarding game play experience?
For fun… I may tweak the Ottoman’s a bit, not sure if they can possibly survive the eventual squeeze between China and the eventual “western” leader.
Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
Well, what about Mughal or Vijaynagar? I guess one of the stronger Indian civs could prove to be interesting.
Sadly, I did not get around to trying them yet, it just takes so much time if you really want to finish a game. It would probably take a year to play them all till the end
Best Regards,
Ace
Sadly, I did not get around to trying them yet, it just takes so much time if you really want to finish a game. It would probably take a year to play them all till the end
Best Regards,
Ace
Just a quick follow up... It is still very early 1550ish, I have wiped out the minors and three bordering civ's.
In 2 turns I will revolt for my civ change to OR.
I have a huge army atm of 29 Jan's and 12+ Knights. I can continute East into Arthura and the Minor but run the risk of waking China .... GULP, I can attack my friend Ismail, or attack the Red Keshick to the North, hit Russia or chill.... Build my economy.
Biggest challenge is the Babur Tech deficit. I am debating my economy choices, I might go with cottages or maybe make the assumption I will miss all the corps and go State Property. Ponder....
In 2 turns I will revolt for my civ change to OR.
I have a huge army atm of 29 Jan's and 12+ Knights. I can continute East into Arthura and the Minor but run the risk of waking China .... GULP, I can attack my friend Ismail, or attack the Red Keshick to the North, hit Russia or chill.... Build my economy.
Biggest challenge is the Babur Tech deficit. I am debating my economy choices, I might go with cottages or maybe make the assumption I will miss all the corps and go State Property. Ponder....
Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
A tiny suggestion:
I think Prague should belong to the HRE in this scenario. As far as I know, it even was the capital of the HRE from 1355 AD to 1558 AD (when it was moved to Vienna).
Furthermore, I noticed in some autoplay games, it seems that the HRE has some troubles from cultural pressure, especially from Venice... maybe this could be changed by adding some more culture to Salzburg, so that the Border is not pushed north of the mountains.
Another thing... last time I looked, the HRE started without Gunpowder. I'm not sure if this was in v4.2 or v5.0 - if it's still the case, is this intended?
Best Regards,
Ace
I think Prague should belong to the HRE in this scenario. As far as I know, it even was the capital of the HRE from 1355 AD to 1558 AD (when it was moved to Vienna).
Furthermore, I noticed in some autoplay games, it seems that the HRE has some troubles from cultural pressure, especially from Venice... maybe this could be changed by adding some more culture to Salzburg, so that the Border is not pushed north of the mountains.
Another thing... last time I looked, the HRE started without Gunpowder. I'm not sure if this was in v4.2 or v5.0 - if it's still the case, is this intended?
Best Regards,
Ace
Quick update on my Prince game as Babur.
I have taken out everything east and south from the indian ocean to the pacific. Five civilizations have fallen to the Babur so far and at 1642 we are number in score China is 2nd. While still behind in tech by a lot, by researching Nationhood first we were able to trade that for three needed techs.
While the Babur's begining land is poor, the powerful starting knights combined with 7 exp Janissaries has allowed me to plow through everything.
Unlike the Ottoman game I tried to play, the Babur are by far the largest military force is the area. The Ottoman's get bogged down pretty quickly and progress is slow. While I like the Ottoman's traits Phil/Imp better in this scenario than Babur Exp/Org, is quite good.
Up till now it has been very easy. Now I know that can change, China could decide to attack Babur (I am trying hard to make sure that does not happen), or the armies of Christ could decide to turn the -50/-100 into a war against Babur as well (helping Ottomans and Arabs without going to war, atm).
I think Babur might have too many upgraded knights or too much of an upgrade to start with?
I have taken out everything east and south from the indian ocean to the pacific. Five civilizations have fallen to the Babur so far and at 1642 we are number in score China is 2nd. While still behind in tech by a lot, by researching Nationhood first we were able to trade that for three needed techs.
While the Babur's begining land is poor, the powerful starting knights combined with 7 exp Janissaries has allowed me to plow through everything.
Unlike the Ottoman game I tried to play, the Babur are by far the largest military force is the area. The Ottoman's get bogged down pretty quickly and progress is slow. While I like the Ottoman's traits Phil/Imp better in this scenario than Babur Exp/Org, is quite good.
Up till now it has been very easy. Now I know that can change, China could decide to attack Babur (I am trying hard to make sure that does not happen), or the armies of Christ could decide to turn the -50/-100 into a war against Babur as well (helping Ottomans and Arabs without going to war, atm).
I think Babur might have too many upgraded knights or too much of an upgrade to start with?
Genghis_Kai
GEM modder
Same problem again: not enough for AI but too much for human players.
Ace of Spades
GEM Fanboy
Hello Halt,
could you post some screenshots? Or a savegame maybe? I would very much like to see your Babur empire
Best Regards,
Ace
could you post some screenshots? Or a savegame maybe? I would very much like to see your Babur empire
Best Regards,
Ace
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