Standard AI-only Photojournal (8-23-3) (New game at Post #20)

[azum4roll]

So, an observation is that Player 1 is often the weakest one in my AI games. I've found a possible cause: Player 1 starting warrior and most importantly pathfinder don't have the 20XP bonus given to all other AI players. This time I've added it back via Firetuner before clicking Autoplay.

The map used is Communitu_79a v2.0.1, which is basically v2.0.0 with the default options fixed. All default settings except Strategic Balance, No Events and No Tech Trading.

Player 8 is fixed to Shaka.

 

[azum4roll]

Turn 132 (after the first successful conquest):

World Map

We have our standard Communitu_79a experience.

Leaderboard (early game edition)

Compared to the previous version, the progress is quite slow.

Wonder Race

• Very slow Pyramids and Stonehenge. A human can easily snatch one of them.
• Colossus is surprisingly early though, thanks to the Zulus going mostly the bottom tech path.
• Tradition still has an edge on building wonders, at least in the early game.

Social Policies

• No one picked Progress, but then all 8 AIs are traditionally (heh) Authority pickers.
• All Authority pickers went Dominance before Tribute. Even for America (who had Expanse) and the Zulus (who had an easier time tributing from UA). In fact, the latter went full right side before picking Tribute.

Settler Race

• There was actually a game that I dropped when I saw 2 civs not settling their second city despite having a settler ready.
• This game went well in case of early settling, so I continued with it.
• This part of the AI still needs fine tuning. Currently they're too paranoid about barbarians to send their settlers out even with an escort.

Religion Race

• Much slower. AIs don't go shrine first anymore, and the gold they got from settling their capital was used on purchasing a tile instead of investing, resulting in a very late pantheon (well, more like human speed now).
• Interestingly the Shoshone never picked a faith ruin. They would get the earliest pantheon if they did.
• AIs still loved Expanse, Ancestor Worship, Tutelary Gods and Home and they still were able to found with those.
• Divine Inheritance was rated highest for both Japan and America, and Creativity was still rated lowest for almost everyone.

Diplomacy and Wars

• Shoshone/Iroquois and Mongolia/Inca signed early DoFs. The latter pair stayed friends but Iroquois denounced Shoshone for attacking Byblos later on.
• The Zulus captured Budapest pretty easily, and ended up with Overrun Swordsmen that did more damage than they took against a walled city. Very scary.
• America revoked their pledge of protection on Budapest when the Zulus started attacking it, and heavy tributed it for 44 (+some ) right before it fell.

Other Notes

• Starving was not seen anymore. Instead, cities were all focusing on food tiles.
• The Inca never bought any mountain tiles. In fact, the only mountain tile they had was the one they settled on. They didn't settle towards the mountainous area either.
• The northwest continent won't have any religion for a while, and religious competition will be harsh elsewhere.
• The Iroquois settled their capital on turn 3. They probably started somewhere to the northwest.
• AIs have learned to pick other promotions, like Medic and Overrun.

Screenshots

Spoiler :

 

[CrazyG]

I'm going to use the numbers from this game as an estimate in a post I'm making. In the first game, do you know if the world's fair ever passed or who build the Sydney opera house? Thanks in advance.

 

[azum4roll]

I'm going to use the numbers from this game as an estimate in a post I'm making. In the first game, do you know if the world's fair ever passed or who build the Sydney opera house? Thanks in advance.

I somehow missed this post. No, I don't have the logs anymore. Maybe next game.

 

[azum4roll]

Turn 236. I had to stop here because some civs just won't enhance their religions.

World Map

The second wave of settlement has just started.

Leaderboard

I missed Hanging Gardens being built. It was before turn 132.

Wonders

• The Aztecs got Terracotta Army. Doesn't seem to be catching up, but it's too early to say.
• Mongolia who has never built any wonders before snatched 3 wonders in different parts of the tech tree. What's helping him to catch up? He's never bullied any City States in this part of the game.
  
• As usual, St. Basil was built by someone who's already reformed.

Social Policies

• We're seeing a wider variety of medieval social policies here instead of 80% Statecraft. Everyone has around the same progress on culture.

Religions

• Spoiler Map :

  
  
  
• I've waited for a while, but both the Zulus and the Inca don't plan on enhancing their religions any time soon.
• The northwest continent still doesn't have any majority religion.
• The Mongol religion is being taken over by the Incan one. He's got Inquisition, but that won't do anything if he doesn't use inquisitors.

Diplomacy and Wars

• The Inca sold Tiwanaku (along with Great Library, Parthenon and Angkor Wat) to Mongolia for just 31GPT, believing him to be friendly, except Genghis had always been deceptive. Well, at least they're fighting the Aztecs together right now.
• The southwest continent is in permanent war so far. Boston was taken by the Zulus, but America is putting up a good fight on defending his capital and attacking the northern Zulu cities by controlling the waters. The Zulus have zero bonus on naval wars after all.
  
• The Zulus had also taken a bribe to war Japan (and his defensive pacts Inca and Mongolia). Because why not?
• Hiawatha decided to take advantage of the Shoshones' happiness problems and launched a full invasion. Pocatello put up a fight, but that wasn't enough to stop the Iroquois. And they're even less happy now.

Other notes

• The Shoshone prioritized encampments and resource connection to city connection, and suffered immense unhappiness as a result. With the vast territory they naturally obtain AND having a UI, I think this unhappiness problem is inevitable for the Shoshone in this version unless they start coastal.
• More promotions have been seen, including Pincer, Blitz, Logistics, Indomitable, Splash Damage, Navigator, Vanguard, Range, Indirect Fire, and Formation II. Great job!
• Tiwanaku should've never been sold. It's built on a mountain, is basically invulnerable, has horses (the iron was taken later) and has 3 wonders to boot.
• The Zulus would've captured Boston way sooner if they pillaged the American citadel on the way. They had units on the tile, but they didn't pillage until ~20 turns later.

Screenshots

Spoiler :

Basically defenseless.

Doesn't seem to care about his religion.

Quantity vs Terrain

Milan was casually taken within a few turns.

 

[azum4roll]

Turn 369. Stopping here because so much stuff happened.

World Map

America is no more, and the Inca is following soon.

Leaderboard

Japan's wonder list would've been longer if they didn't sell 5 of them to Mongolia.

Victory Race

• Japan is already influential to 3 civs and leads in tech, but Mongolia has more votes.
• Military-wise, the top 4 civs all have carpets of units, but the Japanese army is the most advanced while the Zulu army is the most experienced (wooden ships).

Wonders
Japan basically built everything other than policy-specific ones after turn 260.

Policies and Ideologies

• Authority leads to Imperialism, and Tradition leads to Rationalism, regardless of their second policies.
• Mongolia decided to stay friendly to Japan (to scam more cities, I bet) and picked Order.

Religion

• Spoiler Map :

  
  
  
• Apparently the Zulus enhanced some time before the last post and I just missed it. They have the highest faith yields thanks to Orders and have several prophets roaming around the world. Before spreading he had 3 prophets sitting in a city idling though. For some reason.
  
• Mongolia continues to ignore religion on his own lands, only rarely using inquisitors.

Diplomacy and Wars

• With an overwhelming amount of land units, the Zulus overrun America and their allied City State, uniting their continent.
• Mongolia invaded the Iroquois who didn't have much of a navy, but couldn't push into their mainland after capturing Montreal and Grand River. The Shoshone helped from the other side.
• Mongolia and Japan started a joint invasion on the Inca, from land and from the water respectively. The latter was no match.
• Shaka found a new target: Montezuma. They're both unlikely to take mainland cities from each other for now.
• The top 2 are super friendly to each other, despite Japan is close to winning.

Other notes

• The Zulus had an army of Cannons with Logistics (upgraded to Field Guns), Blitz or Vanguard/Dauntless/Naval Siege melee ships and soon Logisitics ranged ships.
• Hiawatha bribed nearly everyone to go to war with the Shoshone while he's in cooldown himself.
  
• Weirdly the Zulus didn't get any ABC bonus when making peace with America on Mongolia's offer (only 32GPT!), even though he had 90 warscore. Is that intended, @Gazebo ?
• Instead of just using an inquisitor on Washington, Shaka spammed missionaries on it. It's still a Holy City as of now.
• Mongolia has a stack of 3 Khans and 1 Engineer inside the kingdom far from the warzone.
  
• City trade problems (reported on Github): after scamming the Inca out of their strongest city, Temujin attempted his trick twice more on his "friend", Japan. He got both Hong Kong and Osaka (with 5 wonders!) AND some GPT at a very cheap price (Montreal + 2 luxuries) at the end.
• Logs:

  337, Japan, Mongolia, , , ***** City Trade: ID Tokyo *****, (value 3841 - raw)
  337, Mongolia, Japan, , , ***** Resource Trade: ID TXT_KEY_RESOURCE_TOBACCO *****, (value 207 - raw)
  337, Mongolia, Japan, , , ***** Resource Trade: ID TXT_KEY_RESOURCE_WINE *****, (value 623 - raw)
  337, Mongolia, Japan, , , ***** GPT Trade: 61 *****, (value 3050 - raw)
  DEAL COMPLETE: Deal Net Value: -39, From Player Value: -3880, To Player Value: 3841
  
  337, Mongolia, Japan, , , ***** City Trade: ID Tokyo *****, (value 17811 - raw)
  337, Japan, Mongolia, , , ***** City Trade: ID Hong Kong *****, (value 10249 - raw)
  337, Japan, Mongolia, , , ***** GPT Trade: 152 *****, (value 7600 - raw)
  DEAL COMPLETE: Deal Net Value: -38, From Player Value: -17849, To Player Value: 17811
  
  367, Japan, Mongolia, , , ***** City Trade: ID Osaka *****, (value 5749 - raw)
  367, Mongolia, Japan, , , ***** City Trade: ID Montreal *****, (value 5578 - raw)
  367, Mongolia, Japan, , , ***** GPT Trade: 4 *****, (value 200 - raw)
  DEAL COMPLETE: Deal Net Value: -29, From Player Value: -5778, To Player Value: 5749

Screenshots

Spoiler Screenshots :

RIP in pieces, Pachacuti.

 

[azum4roll]

I probably should finish this, shouldn't I?

Problem is, Civ5 seemed to have updated itself (I got the new launcher back somehow so I had to opt back into the legacy one) and my modpack wouldn't load anymore, so I'm locked out of the save file completely.

I did run the game till year 2050 (turn 500) before until it inevitably started breaking apart. Japan should win SV but Mongolia is close behind in building spaceship parts, while threatening to win DV in every hegemony vote.

Everything that I still remember, in point form:

• Inca was no more, as expected.
  
• Both Shoshone and Iroquois became voluntary vassals of Zulu, on turn 415 and 421 respectively. Shoshone broke out of it later on. Those 3 stayed allied till the end.
  
• Shoshone traded Goshute to Iroquois for a reasonable price (95GPT + 2 luxuries). Probably the only reasonable city trade in the whole game.
• Mongolia nearly wiped Aztecs off the map, but he accepted vassalage when the latter had one city left. They formed the second alliance.
• Japan was on his own at the end as the third power.

• Japan grabbed nearly every wonder post-Industrial, except the ones he couldn't build (policy/ideology exclusive).
• Zulu built United Nations. None of the other world congress projects were ever proposed.
• Sydney Opera House was built on Turn 419, for @CrazyG.
• World Ideology: Order was enacted, repealed, then enacted again.

• The Zulu army/navy pushed all the way to the Japanese mainland, but got slaughtered by the Japanese bombers, and as a result the former stopped being a threat.
  
• AIs still love to attack with Carriers. Is it possible to make a promotion for it that gains 1 exp whenever a plane onboard gains exp, so it doesn't have to attack/take hits to level up?
• Iroquois snatched Montreal back from Japan, who was defenseless.

 

[Heinz_Guderian]

Yes, this is very interesting and probably helpful to the devs!

Probably a stupid question but how do I do this? I can't figure out how to play with only AIs

 

[azum4roll]

Yes, this is very interesting and probably helpful to the devs!

Probably a stupid question but how do I do this? I can't figure out how to play with only AIs

Download Civ 5 SDK if you haven't already.

Start a new game with you and AIs and start the Firetuner from the SDK.

To make it fair, you can use Firetuner to increase your starting Warrior and Pathfinder's XP to match that of the AIs. And give yourself an additional Warrior.

There should be a button called "Autoplay" in the Firetuner. Use that and everything should play itself.