SUL4: Training Day for Emperors

[Sullla]

And here is the map showing my bloody gains.

 

[Ridgelake]

I have the game and will start on it tonight. It will probably take until tomorrow night to finish though.....

 

[Rowain deWolf]

Originally posted by LKendter
@Sullla - So I wasn't the ONLY one with absurd flips in GOTM#8

Trust me, as long as 1 cities ANYWHERE is left, you may get an unexpected flip. I have even sufferred the dreaded - no nearby city flip.

Sorry to intercept,

Let me guess it was a russian city that flippped? I had a no- nearby-city flip and got so confused that i stopped playing.


Rowain

 

[LKendter]

Actually - the French cities were HELL.
I don't think I suffered a Russian flip from the distance.

I lost track of how many flips I sufferred - even nonsense like there ONE city NE, 100% captured SE - got hit there, etc.

 

[Ridgelake]

I started on my turn last night and go through one or two turns. A couple of important things have occurred.

First, Joanie and Cleo got into bed together with an MPP. :love2: That might be something to see.....

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program, we had a long-distance culture flip with Rheims going back to France. And we didnt have any cavs close enough to strike the first turn. I hope that they havent drafted too many before I can mount an assualt in turn 2.....

Resistance ended in Paris.

One city captured on the French/Egyptian island. But with the war started with Cleo, I have to protect my flank and so I cannot steamroll the remainder of the French with that 4 cav force......

I learned that 768 gpt is not as much as I would like. Put another way, rushing cavs and rifles is expensive!

 

[Sullla]

Ridgelake: This is not so bad as it would seem; I'm sure you can easily take back the flipped city and I doubt many flips will be occuring once those cities are out of resistance and have libraries in them. The MPP doesn't really hurt us either since we were going to have to go after Egypt soon anyway. We only need 50 or so tiles for domination. I fully expect that you can get that on your turn.

As to culture flips... here's the picture from GOTM8 I was referring to:

 

[Rowain deWolf]

Yes that flip looks like mine

it simple says thats it is always better to raze than to capture.

Until now i had played in a "live and let live"-way so i often didn't bother with the last city of a defeded enemy now it seems i have to go the "wipe them out. all of them" -route.


Rowain

 

[T-hawk]

You probably know this, Sulla, but for everyone else, since it's a TDG: remember the formula.

(Tiles + Nationals) * Distances * Culture * (2 if disorder) * (2 if historical culture) - Garrison

Number of tiles in the 21-tile radius under enemy civ control, plus the number of nationals of enemy civ in city (resisters count double.) Multiply by the ratio of distances to the civs' capitals, and multiply by the ratio of total civ-wide cultures. Double if in civil disorder, and also double it if the enemy civ had more historical culture in the city than its current controller. Subtract the number of military units in the city.

In a war zone, rushing a library does *not* help if the city is already completely surrounded by neutral territory (even if not, it still doesn't help except for the border expansion.) Similarly, having London surrounded by your own territory in that GOTM8 shot didn't matter. What caused the flip were English nationals in the city, and the lack of any garrison.

In any city, if you have the advantage in capital distance and civ-wide culture, two military units per foreign national removes all chance of flipping. It takes only one unit per national if the city has generated more historical culture for you than for the enemy civ.

Sorry, but I have to call that GOTM8 flip completely avoidable...

 

[LKendter]

Actually - I did NOT get that particular flip.

By the time I took out England - I had ships ready to take out ther northern island. I blew through England in NO time. Plus, England was a JOKE in my game.

France was the culture flip H!@$ for me. Between this game and RBD12V2 - I will now build libraries even if I *DON'T* plan to research.

 

[Ridgelake]

Originally posted by Sullla
[BThe MPP doesn't really hurt us either since we were going to have to go after Egypt soon anyway.

Yes, the MPP is more of an annoyance than anything. It basically means that I will continue to have war weariness (which means less income due to luxury rate) and that I have to divert forces to protect against a possible Egyptian attack (less offensive forces immediately available). It slows things down, that is all.

 

[Rowain deWolf]

Originally posted by T-hawk
You probably know this, Sulla, but for everyone else, since it's a TDG: remember the formula.

(Tiles + Nationals) * Distances * Culture * (2 if disorder) * (2 if historical culture) - Garrison

I thought having control over the 21 tiles and more culture would be enough to prevent a flip. The Russians proved me wrong.

Thanks T-hawk for the formula-reminder.

Originally posted by T-hawk

Sorry, but I have to call that GOTM8 flip completely avoidable...

Absolutly right. My flip was similar avoidable. As stated above i will avoid any such flip in the future by simple going the genocide-route.

Rowain

 

[Ridgelake]

1300AD (0) Normal preturn stuff. Cycle through to see what is what.

Orleans changed from all entertainers to all tax collectors.
Madras changed from barrack (Sun Zu) to cavalry.
Mycenae changed from library to harbor.
Rheims from cavalry to marketplace. Pop control is a problem here.
Karachi from barrack (Sun Zu again) to rifle.
Marseille changed from all entertainers to all tax collectors. Same done in all other French cities.
Eridu from temple to aqueduct.

I wake up some galleons to help shuttle more troops.

Diplo check reveals that Cleo is furious with us. She has Steam Power, Free Artistry, and Communism. Communism would be potentially useful, but we don’t want to wait out the anarchy period. I actually consider trading for the dyes, the last luxury that we don’t have. I offer ALL of our excess luxuries, 30 gpt and 75 gold. I would consider doing this now as who are we going to tick off if we break that deal? It is only the two of us left (effectively). On the other hand, we make 795 gpt at 9/0/1. So 10% is worth roughly 90 gpt. If we take the deal, we net 60gpt and get our last luzury.

I take it. Reset slider to 10/0/0. F1 to make sure everyone is happy, we now get 879 gpt.

Hit Enter.

1305AD (1) Cleo and Joanie sign an MPP. Rheims flips. Cleo declares war on us. So much for the nice additional luxury. Slider reset to 9/0/1.

Paris resistance ends. Library rushed and starvation cued up.

Assault begun on Amiens. First cav dies to a regular rifle. Second cav kills spear. Third cav kills the rifle and we take the city. Library and starvation ordered.

I realize that these guys will need reinforcements. And we have only 1 galleon for shuttling troops over from Odessa. So I change Purple over to galleon. Due next turn.

A series of Cavs lined up outside Rheims. I could not attack them this turn.

1310AD (2) We are attacked by 1 Egyptian cav in Lyons. It kills one of our cavs, but will be easy pickings on my turn. Two rifles approach Avignon. More easy kills.

3 Egyptian rifles and a sword approach Amiens, our new city on the island. So does 1 french rifle. The resistance ends here, so I rush a barrack.

Paris builds library, rifle ordered up. Resistance ended in Lyons, library rushed. All French cities continued to be starved down.

Rheims retaken. Rifles picked off outside Avignon. We get some bad rolls here and lose some cavs.

With superior numbers approaching Amiens, I fortify the 3 remaining cavs there. A ship will arrive next turn with 3 cavs and a rifle.

I toy with the idea of researching steam engine. We can go 5/4/1, 337 gpt and get it in 4. Or we can stay 9/0/1 and get 787gpt. The trade off is basically 1800 gold over the next 4 turns against the benefit of steam power. 1800 gold will buy me 5 cav/rifles. I further consider where we will be doing our attacking. I figure that the islands will be less well defended than the mainland Egypt. So that means that if I can hold off a lot of attacks on Egypt on the main land. So then our productivity at home will lead to island conquering, something that will benefit a lot from rails. I decide to go for steam power.

1315AD (3) We lose 3 straight battles of rifles attacking our fortified cavs. The Eqyptians take Amiens.

I land our 3 new cavs and a rifle on the mountain outside Amiens.

I pick off a 6 unit Egyptian force that was descending on Lyons. In the process, we get a Great Leader, Hector!!!!!! [dance] With nothing good to build, I decide to use him to raise an army. Elite Cavs it will be. The tide is now turning on my turn.

1320 AD (4) Amiens is recaptured. It is down to size 1, so no starvation or resistors. A loose rifle is also picked off on the island. I shuttle across 4 more cavs from the mainland. With the mid-sea hand over, they arrive on the same turn that they departed from the mainland. We now have an adequate offensive force on this island.

Workers are moved into position for the oncoming steam power.

An army of elite cavs is formed in Lyons. We kill about 5 or 6 Egyptian attackers. I am getting this group ready to go on offensive. Egypt had the gall to send a frigate to bombard Lyons. Ok, so I summon our own boats to dispatch it.

As a last second thought before ending the turn, I check F1. Good thing I did because another bout of war weariness came forward. A few tax collectors in some outer cities will suffice for now.

1325 AD (5) We finally get the resistances in mainland France to end. We also have not lost a single unit in defense of mainland France from Cleo’s attacks, with the exception of the first attack.

Library rushed in Avignon.

Dijon captured on the French island. A harbor rushed, using a worker seed. Only 1 French city left. It should come to us next turn.

A large collection of cavs is stationed outside of Memphis, Cleo’s first city that will fall to us.

Slider adjusted to 6/3/1. Steampower due next turn.

1330 AD (6) We get Steam Power!!!!! Workers back to work. Slider back to 9/0/1.

Assault on Rouen, the final French city begins. Our cav gets spanked by a spearman who did not lose a point. Our next cav beats the spear after losing the first 2 attacks. It takes 3 more cavs before the spears and archers of Rouen are defeated! France is Destroyed.

I try to dial up Cleo to see about getting a moment of peace to help with war weariness. No one answers the phone. Ok, we will teach them to not answer!

1335 AD (7) Memphis captured. We get Dyes, the last luxury! And we get Adam Smith. Woooo Wooo.

I use the controlled area to then attack Pi-Rameses. It is captured.

Library rushed in Lyons and Dijon.

Asyut captured on the island. Two cavs positioned for the next island city.

1340 AD (8) We get an addition to our palace! Everyone goes into WLTKD. The extra luxury is nice.

Then, all of a sudden, WE WIN BY DOMINATION!!!!!!!!!!! [dance]

Score 5595. Wooo Woooo!

I want to be the first to say THANK YOU, SULLA for guiding us through this training game. It has been a lot of fun and a great learning experience.

PS. When does Diety training start?

PPS. I went back to the autosave file and replayed 1335 AD to get it to the finishing point for everyone to load if they wish.

 

[Ziggy]

woohoo!..well done veryone.and we got smiths back..take that Cleo!
let me be second Sulla..thanks for the training...helped lots
whats next game?

 

[Sullla]

Critique for Ridgelake: (you think you get off the hook because the game ended on your turn?)

1300AD: Yes, I could have changed some entertainers to tax collectors, but that is a rather minor point. Doing so provided a very small benefit to us. Remember, you have to change them back to tax collectors every turn, since the AI will place them back onto tiles and as entertainers whenever starvation occurs. Rheims to marketplace? I hope you didn't rush that. We only have so much money; all non-essential buildings should not be rushed. If you are concerned about population in Rheims, rush a WORKER and starve it so that the population decreases by two each turn. If you had rushed the market (cost of 400g) it would have just disappeared when Rheims flipped.

Your deal with Cleo is interesting. Yes, we could indeed use the last luxury, but I wouldn't have made the trade for the following reasons. France's territory alone would bring us close to, but not over, the limit for domination. We would need at least 1 or 2 Egyptian cities to do that, so that means leaving open the option for war. You responded to this by saying, "who are we going to tick off if we break that deal? It is only the two of us left (effectively). " True, but a broken deal is still a broken deal. While you can play the game as you like when playing by yourself, in my games I am going to encourage playing the game strictly by honorable diplomatic methods. Some things, like starving cities and needing to raze them occasionally, are necessary but I'm feel very strongly against players signing deals they mean to break. We weren't suffering too badly from war weariness either, for that matter. Not a bad trade, but I don't like the motivation behind it.

The fact that you even CONSIDERED going to Communism is major, major . That government would have sent all of our production up in smoke, AND replace our rush-buying with population rushing. NOT what we want at all, especially with war weariness easily manageable (I've handled far, far worse).

1305AD: I'm GLAD that Cleo declared war on us, because it looks like you otherwise would have been forced to honor that deal! As if the Egyptians could hurt us too. The flip of Rheims sucks, but all you can do is play on and take it back, which I see you did. Sending more cavs to the northeast island was both necessary and done well.

1310AD: Your war-time moves were fine this turn. Your peace-time thinking was rather silly though. Research Steam Power? That's some pungent weed there. I could have traded for Steam Power on any of the last 4 turns when I had the game, but didn't do so. Know why? Because I knew the game would be over before rails made any kind of difference. With our civ on the very threshold of a domination victory, it's ludicrous to give up some income now for the benefits of rails later. What later? There isn't going to BE a later! Your comments were that, "The trade off is basically 1800 gold over the next 4 turns against the benefit of steam power." and, "So then our productivity at home will lead to island conquering, something that will benefit a lot from rails. I decide to go for steam power." I'd rather have the 1800g (and said so in my turn) because it will take 10 turns for the rails to begin to have any kind of an impact, and by then the game will be over! No, that money should have gone into more cavs or into cities for cultural buildings to get to the domination limit a few turns faster. And I think the results of the turn bear that out.

1320AD: Good thing you checked F1 indeed. At the end of any turn of a war when in a representative government, you had better do this or else you will get an unpleasant surprise at the beginning of your next turn when a bunch of cities go into revolt.

1325AD: I'm glad to see that libraries were getting rushed in all captured cities. I'm not so glad to see that we were still researching Steam Power here, though you did at least change the slider to get more gold from it.

1330AD: France destroyed! Nice. [dance] OK, not so good is that you actually considered making peace with Egypt! What were you thinking? We had to be maybe 10, 15 tiles from domination and you wanted to stop and NOT win the game?! Thank goodness Cleo refused to see you! That's twice this turn your silly moves were stopped through here even more ridiculous actions. Consider yourself very lucky.

1335AD: You captured 2 Egyptian cities this turn, bringing some 20 more tiles under our control. And, not coincidentally...

1340AD: We win a domination victory as a result!

And Ridgelake wanted to make peace with Egypt!

 

[Sullla]

Post-game Comments:

What has everyone learned as a result of this game? I think every one of you that participated in this game has improved as a result. How could you NOT improve might be a better question. I'm going to go through the phases of the game briefly to sum things up.

1) Expansion Phase: This was how we started the game off, by optimizing our early cities as much as possible to gain as much territory as we could. At this point in the game, we were doing the most management of individual cities. From this period, you should take away the necessity of controlling individual tiles in each of your first few cities, prioritizing growth over shields in most cases, and choosing intelligent production choices early on. We expanded until we ran out of room to expand, then began to prepare for attack.

2) Ancient Age Warfare: We used the fact that we had iron and Russia didn't to conquer them with swords. If we had had horses instead, we would have used them. With neither, we would have made due with archers. Regardless, it was absolutely necessary to gain more space by attacking and destroying them. We chose the right timing for the attack, carried it out quickly and efficiently, and nearly doubled our territory as a result. A model campaign.

3) Middle Ages Warfare: We didn't spend much time consolidating Russian territory before going after Babylon. We used the mass horsemen -> knights upgrade to carry out the attack at JUST the right time (before muskets) and swept through Babylon like a knife through butter. The leader we got put the Forbidden Palace in a secure city near our new conquests, doubling our income and productivity and allowing us to control the world. Even without the leader, we would have build the FP manually near that area. This phase ended with us in control of our continent.

4) Consolidation: We then spent a while turning our continent into a model of production. Every city got marketplaces and banks, those that were too corrupted or lacking shields to build them through rushing jobs, and our commercial attribute as Greeks did the rest. With our income through the roof and our cities secure, we could win any victory type we chose (except maybe cultural). We opted for a military type victory, which led to

5) Industrial Age Warfare: We used our superior production to send 20 cavs across the ocean to India, and our income to rush more of them there as necessary. Once India was destroyed, France was kicked off the continent in a lightning campaign than demonstrated the inability of the AI to cope with 3-move units, and finally killed off a few turns later. When attacking the first Egyptian cities, we achieved a domination victory.

What are the lessons from this game? It's necessary to balance expansion, military, and infrastructure, which we did in this game. Always buy techs once you have contact with the rest of the world. Never try to build a wonder on Emperor when the cascade is in full effect. Income can be just as good as production, if managed correctly. Smart, short, and efficient military campaigns are the way to go; we won every war we fought through our preparations beforehand. And remember: the AI is stupid, it makes poor decisions, and you can beat it! More advantages does not make the AI any smarter, so these tactics work equally well at all levels (though the Deity AI civs frighten me pretty badly at times; they usually have 10 cities to my 4 at time of contact). We had weedy moves from the first turn (building a barracks in Athens?) to the last turn (researching Steam Power?) but we still won handily in the end.

I get the feeling everyone who played this game enjoyed it. I did too, but it took a lot of time out of me. These reports took somewhere between a 1/2 hour and an hour, usually. And when multiple turns were being played per day... it could be a bit of a strain. But I'm glad I did it, and I only wish that I could spend time helping everyone out there. Would you believe that no fewer than 4 other people have e-mailed or PMed me asking if they can join my training day game? It's a popular thing.

So what's next for me? Since I am away on vacation all next week, nothing for the moment. I'm also quite busy with playing the Realms Beyond Epics at the moment (you should all check them out if you're curious) so I've been cutting back my succession game activities a bit. I'm not going to be doing any more training day games for a while, because they just take too much time. Maybe in another month or so. I would like to try a Deity succession game soon, since there hasn't been one here since Arathorn's LOTR1 (diplo win in 1080AD) and the OCC Deity game (which they ALSO won, btw). But don't expect that to be appearing anytime soon.

I'm sure all of you can solo on Monarch by now, and probably Emperor if you use what I've taught you. The game was a lot of fun for me as well. Good luck in all your future Civ3 endeavors.

 

[T-hawk]

Good show all around, and thanks for contributing to the Civ 3 community.

However, I must disagree on one point:

"Never try to build a wonder on Emperor when the cascade is in full effect."

You can always get ONE wonder, if you build it away from the capital so the Palace placeholder is available. Plus, by building one yourself you shorten the cascade by that much, and once it's over any future wonders are yours for the prebuilding. Also, the human player can optimize his strategy for the one wonder in a way the AIs can't. Got Sistine? Build cathedrals and don't worry about marketplaces. Got Leonardo's? Build tons of horsemen. Finally, it'll step towards a Golden Age if your civ is one that'll have trouble doing that with the UU.

Maybe I should run a TDG now that this one is over...

 

[Ihmotep]

My god, this thing is still going! heh.....

I was browsing my favorites and i came across the site


anyhoo....Where are we at? (dont feel like reading all the posts)

 

[Ziggy]

er..we arent anywhere...it's been done for like 2 months (we won!).scroll up bout 3-4 posts to see

you think YOU were surprised.imagine my shock when i got the email that someone posted here.lol

 

[Ihmotep]

oh! lol...I didn't even notice that post

well good game you guys

 

[Ziggy]

yep it was so...enjoyed it heaps..moved on to the rbciv epics now.check em out.links in one of sullas msgs somewhere