SGOTM 15 - Xteam

[Undecided]

@ Zamint:

How do you do that? Just loading the WBsave with BUFFY or is there something else to it?

 

[zamint3]

Exactly, but this doesn't mean that theology is discovered. Just that one AI has reached Meditation or Monotheism and can decide how they call their newfound religion.

So someone got Mono pretty fast in undecided's game.

I tested this just hitting enter 35 times.
In Undecideds test game I got Taoism around T35 and in leifs test game I got Islam T28
In both cases the AI had researched Meditation according to WB.
Rather late even without Mysticism isn't it?

 

[zamint3]

@ Zamint:

How do you do that? Just loading the WBsave with BUFFY or is there something else to it?

I wish I knew....

 

[The-Hawk]

If the map maker knows all that Htadus asserts, then what else might he have done to add to the challenge?

Neilmeister is one of the premier AP Victory players in HOF-land. I suspect he knows all the tricks.

With the caveat that I am one of the worst AP-Victory players in HOF-land, I can think of several reasons an AP Victory would be slowed down or impossible:

• An AI builds AP first under a non-Hindu religion. I don't know how Neil would increase the odds of this without giving them a tech headstart (and therefore making Hindu a big risk for some teams). However, if it happens, then I believe AP victory is impossible for us. Even if we capture it, the votes will be based on the AP religion.
• Prevent missionary spread by closing borders. If Neil wants to slow us down, he will put religious fanatics who only OB on cautious or higher. If he wants to really slow us down, he puts Tofu in the game. In either case, it is likely we will be able to open borders by gifting techs. However, if we have a "OB on cautious" AI go -4 for religion, this might not work, especially with aggressive AI. I'll play around with this in a bit. If we don't get OB, then we will need to capture a city, infect it with Hindu, then gift it back. Obviously, a key factor will be how many AI's close borders with us. One or two, we can do the capture/gift city gambit. More than that and it will take a long time. If we are DOW'ing on half the AI's, we might as well go for Domination.
• Prevent religion spread via Theocracy. A Theo favoring AI would be a pain (or Togu). In these cases, no option but to capture/gift. Same issue as above.
• When it is all said and done, we need to win a diplo vote. I assume (not 100% sure, does anyone know?) that this means we need one AI to vote for us. If they all go to a different religion, this could be a challenge, especially if we have a bunch of DOW negatives for capturing/gifting cities.
• We may need more than one AI voting for us. After all, we will have spread Hindu to 8-9 AI cities, these all get votes. Obviously we would go for low pop cities, but having everyone hating us could make it hard to get the votes % (anyone know the %? I want to say 75%, but not sure). If we need to capture/build sufficient cities to to give us 75% of the Hindu pop, we might also be well on our way to Domination.

If all of our opponents already are Buddhists and one of them builds the AP, we could be in a hurt and earn an AP loss. Our only hope would be to get Theology and switch to Theocracy to prevent the spread of Buddhism to us since all civilization must have the AP religion for there to be victory.

I assume we could raze the AP city as well. However, you raise a good point. If there is a big Buddhist block out there, we need to be careful.

 

[Cactus Pete]

Interesting, Hawk. Didn't know Neil was an AP master. That suggests that he might indeed have tried to create a game where a very well played AP strategy would have a good chance to win.

 

[leif erikson]

@ Zamint:

How do you do that? Just loading the WBsave with BUFFY or is there something else to it?

Load the save, enter WorldBuilder and then make a WB save. Exit back to the main menu and load buffy. When buffy is loaded, go to single player and then play a scenario. Look for the WB save file and call it up and load the game, your save is now in buffy. Then you have to remember to make a save.

Sorry I screwed up my test save, shouldn't hurry...

 

[Undecided]

I assume we could raze the AP city as well.

If you know how to do this under this games' settings, you would be the best AP-player imo

@zamint:
I took my WBSave and started it as a scenario with BUFFY and then saved. Now it looks more like leif's one. Many red sentences in the settings screen and stuff.

@leif
Did just that, but thanks for your help.

 

[The-Hawk]

If you know how to do this under this games' settings, you would be the best AP-player imo

Whoops!

 

[leif erikson]

I assume we could raze the AP city as well. However, you raise a good point. If there is a big Buddhist block out there, we need to be careful.

This brings up two problems for us.

1. What if the AP city is halfway across the world where it will require a lot of time to find, never mind raze.

2. We cannot capture any Buddhist cities for once we do, the AP victory becomes a possibility.

This leads me to the conclusion that we need to try to build the AP for denial reasons.

@Undecided, you're welcome. Sorry I was too slow.

 

[zamint3]

If you know how to do this under this games' settings, you would be the best AP-player imo

@zamint:
I took my WBSave and started it as a scenario with BUFFY and then saved. Now it looks more like leif's one. Many red sentences in the settings screen and stuff.

Very nice...

Now I know why you didn't have BUFFY in the first place, teams not being an option when already in BUFFY..

 

[Htadus]

If the map maker knows all that Htadus asserts, then what else might he have done to add to the challenge?

As i said before neil is a top and an efficient AP player. Other than making this an AW game, he has tried to make AP difficut. Let me address the question in another way.

"Options: Well, LOTS. Lets see, there's: "

No City Razing: Pro= easy to return an infected city, con: can not raze AP city.

City Flip After Conquest: Can not get rid of a AI that does not play AP game and he just made conquest veryy iffy too. But again the cities can be infected during this time.

Aggressive AI: Hard to get + modifiers.

No Tech Brokering: Pro, once we found the religion early, others will wait a while to tech this, good for us to learn Aesthetics and trade to others at our own leisure. Any one who need it got to get it from us since they usually do not go for it. Others usually learn nearly the same techs so we can benefit from this. Cons: I see none.

No Vassal States: For AP all this mean is we will have to work at getting a friend. Applicable to UN too.

Unrestricted Leaders: Odd civ combos only. So izzy could start with very cool start techs. no big deal.

Convert and Stay in Hindu The real issue is this. No cheasy single candidate crap that I just pulled in the last BOTM. But this is not an issue with having 1 friend in the same religion and gifting the AP to a non Hindu for AP vote. This is the reason to get the GE. We go deep inside 1 selected AI and found a crappy city and build the AP in it. This AI need to have founded his/her own religion. Ideal candidate would be Budhist founder. Let AI take it or gift as peace process. Now we are dealing with a non hind candidate and 1 hindu friend.

So what can really stop this. Need for Astro to get 1 last AI to convert since we are going to send a special forces settler and 2 missionaries at least and the gift it.

Hawk, regarding Toku , he likes....no he loves free gift cities. So the issue is Astro, really ,and finding 1 friend. Also we do not need more than 1 AI to be our friend. And that AI will have every city of it in our religion.

I wish I had some time to demonstrate this in a game. maybe this week end.

 

[Mad Professor]

What I'm getting from this conversation is that the mapmaker has done a good job of making the possible very early AP victory very difficult and balancing it up with a couple of other possibilities, but building the AP is still desirable even if just to remove the possibility of an AP loss. Devious.

 

[leif erikson]

What I'm getting from this conversation is that the mapmaker has done a good job of making the possible very early AP victory very difficult and balancing it up with a couple of other possibilities, but building the AP is still desirable even if just to remove the possibility of an AP loss. Devious.

I'm getting the same here.

If this is what others are thinking, then our testing should reflect roughly the plan Htadus outlined earlier. And is that plan best suited to settling 1E or on the Marble?

Thanks Undecided for the save.

Sorry, testing was delayed this evening as my sister showed up with her notebook and it needed a bit of attention. Shooting for tomorrow.

 

[Htadus]

I did a quick test to get the AP built. I did not do much of micro or optimal tech path. I am at war but AP is done in hindu and lets see how to improve it.

 

[Mad Professor]

I'm going to be hard to find until at least the middle of next week. Hope to put in some more then...

 

[zamint3]

I like the AP-idea

I agree in building AP no matter which VC we go for, to avoid loss.

So what can really stop this. Need for Astro to get 1 last AI to convert since we are going to send a special forces settler and 2 missionaries at least and the gift it.

We should plan for this. If all land is taken, we need troops to conquer a city to give back!

Don't forget spies, Kakumeika used a few nice tricks last SGOTM.

Off to take a look at Htadus' save....

 

[The-Hawk]

I like the AP-idea

I agree in building AP no matter which VC we go for, to avoid loss.

Yep I am leaning this way as well. The no raze option really adds to the risk. Hopefully we will meet AI's pretty quickly. If they are all Buddhist, then we probably should prioritize AP.

 

[leif erikson]

Just had a look at Htadus' save. Turn 102 for AP, is that relatively fast? Thought someone posted an AP time for the AI earlier, like turn 60 or 70?

OK, will give this a shot today and see if I can do any better...
Doubt it but...

Agree with z3 and Hawk.
Will require a lot of resources though. Should we also be thinking in terms of 'mids for the happiness and research boost of Representation?

 

[Htadus]

Just had a look at Htadus' save. Turn 102 for AP, is that relatively fast? Thought someone posted an AP time for the AI earlier, like turn 60 or 70?

It is an OK date. I did not beeline PH to build the Oracle. Did only 1 whip to build the Forge with 2 chops. There are too many iffs at the moment since we are in the dark about the map. GE process need about 25+- turns after the Oracle> MC to build the AP.
Agree with z3 and Hawk. Add me to this group
Will require a lot of resources though. Should we also be thinking in terms of 'mids for the happiness and research boost of Representation?

Yes since the fastest route is bulbing and with CoL and rep we can move along fast in any path.

 

[leif erikson]

Check out the scoreboard. What in the name of Pete has OSS done to create that score line?