The Hall of Players

[Seraiel]

Hey .

The question I'm asking myself is, why you play with random settings and don't choose your victory condition from the start. The map Pangaea i. e. forces you to play for either Domination or Conquest, if you wanted to go for Space, then you could get double land on the much larger Terra and more land = more = more resources = faster win. For Dom- / Conquest however, you got a horrible opponent next, because you definitely want to conquer Charlemagne, and you know yourself how nice PRO-LBs are. That's exactly what you'd need to do though, because your tech-speed is slow (lack of Golds, late CS) so you won't have Cuirrassiers to stomp the map... Also: If you play for Domination, then it'd be ideal, if you took opponents that you can peacevassal, so Joao, Hatty, Gandhi, Catherine and all the like, like i. e. in this game by WastinTime.

What I also notice, is, that you needed too long imo. from Construction towards the actual attack, I think I remember 1AD as a date, though not completely sure. Generally, you should be able to build up an army with Chops and whips in less than 500y, I think I've gotten 10 Elephants + 5 Catapults in less than 300y already.
Your first target getting to Longbows in the war btw. is something that is normal from my experiencce. I often go against Longbows with Elepult and it's usually np, requires to focus on building enough replacement catapults, because the Catapults then have 0 chance to survive, but after 1-3 Catapults, the first Elephant usually has something like 75%+ chances.

From seeing your game however, I'd try to peacevassal Joao next while teching as fast as possible towards Cuirrassiers and not attack BurgerKing with Elephants because as you said, even Trebs against Castles are horrible. I'd also pay great attention on getting Theology somehow, in order to be able to build 5XP units. The worst thing I ask myself is, why your AIs have so horribly many cities. If the map is normal sized, crowded and if possible even a "micro Pangaea" , then no AI would have more than 4 cities, most would probably have 2 or 3. AIs with so few cities are a lot easier to peacevassal, they tech extremely slow and also have a lot more difficulties with getting up a decent defense. Generally, the map could be half as large though, so it's neither a Conquest-map nor a Spacerace map.

Hard to comment for me on that game, your path to me seems mostly good, but you imo. should take the 3 points about building up the army in less time, paying great attention to getting 5 XP units, just because they're so much stronger, and if your game is with standard setting, it's basically not competetive from the start, then I'd give you advice I got but found wrongly directed towards me, that you should take the chance and really post a random-game in S&T, so other players are able to play alongside... If you only play for fun and want the game to be stored somewhere, then conquer Isabella completely, peacevassal Joao, focus on teching towards Cuirrassiers, prepare a GM to upgrade the Elephants to Cuirrassiers and focus on getting the best attack date possible against BurgerKing .

 

[Pangaea]

Thanks for the feedback Seraiel

Touched on it in an earlier post, but I mainly wanted this to be a 'normal' game, so didn't choose opponents or try to get a micro Pangaea or something. Simply re-rolled a few times until a decent looking map showed up, and got going. As a result the game would never be fantastic, but it's still nice to get some advice, so I can try things I may not have thought about myself.

Don't think my attack date was too bad though. Looking at the saves, I Oracled Construction in 900BC, and attacked Isabella in 375BC with 8 catas and 6 elephants, so 14 units in those ~500 years.

Since I'm likely to be up against longbows now, I'll need to focus more on getting replacement catas, as you say, and less on expanding the army. Have lost many catas already due to those damn hill cities, and it will only get worse

Being able to peace vassal Joao would be good. Then I first need to break through Sitting Bull, which won't be pretty if gets protective longbows. But I need border pressure with Joao to get him to peace vassal. After that, maybe a Cuirs war on Darius and Charlie. That basically means I've dropped the idea of space, but I'll see how things pan out. Maybe it would be more fun with a conquest/domination whipping-fest game. It's been a while

 

[Noble Zarkon]

General question - normally you wouldn't cottage Plains tiles mainly because of the food deficit IIUC. In a Time game where you have Sushi and Mining Inc would you consider cottaging Plains tiles in your capital? I don't normally but I'm thing that with Sushi providing the food and MI the hammers maybe it's not such a daft idea???

 

[IglooDame]

Well it's that time of the decade again, I should resume playing Civ4 HoF games.

I'd ask if anything has changed in the last four years, but... meh. I'm sure I'll figure it out. Now time to install Civ4 on a clean XP machine...

 

[Seraiel]

General question - normally you wouldn't cottage Plains tiles mainly because of the food deficit IIUC. In a Time game where you have Sushi and Mining Inc would you consider cottaging Plains tiles in your capital? I don't normally but I'm thing that with Sushi providing the food and MI the hammers maybe it's not such a daft idea???

In time games, I'd build nothing but Farms. Cottaging Plains can be ok temporarily, but in the end you'll have more research than you would ever need and research 1 future tech / turn even on Marathon and it's the score that matters. In some of my time-games, cities reached sizes between 50 and 75, and even with founding as many cities as possible by any means, I wasn't able to create the highest score of all time-games ever played. You need to give the absolute highest prioritization, gather all possible Sushi-resources, even leave the AIs alive that you are not allowed to conquer, trade from them and supress them via espionage if necessary, also hire nothing except Merchants and use the extra of them aswell for a fun-city, like the one that has the most anyway and play a little Kaitzilla ^^ .

 

[WastinTime]

General question - normally you wouldn't cottage Plains tiles mainly because of the food deficit IIUC. In a Time game where you have Sushi and Mining Inc would you consider cottaging Plains tiles in your capital? I don't normally but I'm thing that with Sushi providing the food and MI the hammers maybe it's not such a daft idea???

cottaged plains are nice when you're in a golden age. It's good if you can get a 'helper city' next to the capital to work them up to villages then hand off to the capital.

But in a Time game, you eventually need to farm it for the population gain

 

[Seraiel]

I wanted to post an update towards the for which I asked all of you for advice, in case you just like to read a little :

This is what roughly happened:

I was forced to research basically everything on my own. The map is completely crazy. It's not even that I'm playing bad, Mansa just researches with a tempo that I have not seen in all of my 5 years of CIV. I'd like to demonstrate this with the following screenshots:

1. Mansa's tech-level in my current game: Notice that he is sometimes more than 1 tech in front of me, he i. e. has RP and Steampower already while I still only have PP. Lizzy profited very harsh from this also, because she got many trades with Mansa instead of with me, therefore she's also more advanced than me, but with her I can at least somehow compare even though she has the Christian Shrine that is so powerful, that she probably runs 100% the whole time:



The demographics: (Plz don't cry)

With 100% research, Mansa still has more than twice as many GNP than I have:



With 100% gold, it's much worse:



As a comparison, this is what the most compareable game I have looked like at the same time:



Notice how I'm just way further away, but the AIs are so backwards that I can't even get any trades from them anymore? This is a concurrence of me not being able to get any trades and me having lost every single race that the game has! Even with bulbing Education and being the first to it, there was no way for me to win Liberalism nor even Communism or Physics! Mansa just researches everything in less than half the time in which I could research it and I'm still busy with catching up, in 580AD!!!

This is how the wonders got distributed:



The oldest wonders I cannot show on that screen, Mansa has about 4-5 more . He even built the Kremlin (with running HR and Emancipation ) . He had 2 GAs already, one from the TM, one from a GP, so just when I thought I might have a chance to catch up, he blew away further :/ . You know yourself, that comparing with Deity-AIs at all without getting trades is actually incredible, it's because Frederick is PHI and because the war against Lincoln was extremely successful as you see, I conquered this crazy capital from Lincoln:



He built built every wonder that Mansa didn't get. Luckily, the MoM, the Mids and even the AW and ND were below them. I unfortunately needed to wait very long with this war, because Lincoln seperated me completely from Mansa and Lizzy, so I'd have lost all of my trade-connections, if I wouldn't have wated for Astro. Losing Gems and Silks with the chance of never getting them back because Mansa and Lizzy might trade them between them was no option, but losing all TRs also wouldn't have been. I'm actually really astonished, how good my position still for all of this is, compared towards a game in which I conquered the complete map with less than 30 Vultures / Catapults. Peaceful REX can compare much better than I thought. Before I went to war with Lincoln, I settled 10 additional cities and all in the BCs. Even war was incredible simple with needing to REX that much, I had about 35 units with which I attacked, so I didn't even need more than in the Giggles game above.

Here's a screenshot of the two empire's just for comparison:





Ofc. absolutely not compareable tech-wise, but the number of cities now is compareable so I really hopes.
1st screen btw. shows the IW-city having started on building the Statue of Liberty. That's the only wonder which I'll get apart from the HGs and hopefully the Christo Redentor and maybe a Hit Wonder too, though I even hope for the Eiffel Tower. Losing Kremlin was a big hit, I lose about 3000 because of that. What kept me in the game really was the hope, which I haven't given up yet.

I'm currently saving money for Medicine and have hired Spy-Specialists because stealing techs seems to be my last chance. A city I conquered from Lincoln culture-flipped to Mansa, stealing in it is incredibly cheap, about 1/4th of what the tech costs in , that's actually twice as effective even with 0 multipliers but therefore Oxford and Libraries i all cities.

Mansa however is also completely crazy in the espionage-era:



Pumping over 100 EPPT against me? No way to even keep seeing what he researches, and that with playing an Organized leader and with having Courthouses in almost all cities .

---------

I settled almost the complete new world, and this is a city that goes towards my heart: ^^



That's the only Silver on the whole map, and once that city gets Sushi, it even has the chance of flipping Mansa's city, which would give me 1 of 2 seafood resources that I couldn't claim. The other seafood resources belongs to Lizzy, I got the same chance of flipping the city with Sushi though, so while I tried to focus on research and catch up and conquered Lincoln, I also was able to build enough Settlers in a very short time to claim 90% of the resources even with being last to Astro (found it in a hut ) .

The new world unfortunately currently wrecks my economy, cities cost up to 15 GPT maintenance and only give as little as 1 GPT. Everything on Marathon takes ages:





Lincoln btw. also had a nice Shrine that's almost as powerful as the Christian one, or with my spreading as powerful now, but when I see those buildtimes of the Bank and the Grocer...



I'm only lucky, that I got 3 GEs, so at least can GE-rush the WS once I have it.

I'm currently waiting for the next GP for my 2nd GA. Really thankful, that I got that city with all the Wonders from Lincoln, I'd be lost without it. Once I'm in the next GA, I can also switch Civics, which will again give me a slighly better stance and then I maybe can finally run a little Emancipation to grow all of those Cottages which I built, because I wanted to test the Cottage-approach.
Regarding the last: When comparing Cottages towards Workshops in theory, the Cottages are actually the way better choice regarding research. A Workshop may be 3-5 , but it's also only 1 so basically half a Specialist. Even a Cottage giving only 2 should be quite ok imo., because imo. half of a Specialist would need to be added and then it's 5 BPT but with easier multipliers than . If needing Spies like in my situation, the Specialist even is 5 GNP alone, so then, the 2 Cottage would be 7 BPT, but it's even still a little more because of the great conversion ratio in that city of Mansa.

There's an interesting chance of bribing Mansa against Lizzy:



Not sure I'm gonna take it though, because I need to somehow leave a possibility to get Lizzy to friendly at least for the near future. I can do so via switching her to a religious civic and if I'm in a GA then, I can also switch to Christianity and get an instant +6 bonus. After that it could be interesting to use another war to weaken Mansa, because I cannot switch Lizzy again and again and she'll always revert to FR again, and then if I'll have the chance to weaken Mansa I need to take it, because him I can get on friendly without problems because of shared war against Lincoln and he's my only trade-option in the very future anyhow.

---------

I'm very interested in how this game will end, if I will ever be able to catch up, or if Mansa goes for Railroad and gets a lucky GE before I can found Mining. The SoL should be a really strong option with so many cities on my continent and with Corporations at latest, I should have a real chance imo.. Generally, this is the most absurd game I've ever played, I have just never experienced a runaway AI that bad and because it's Mansa who trades everything in this case, it's really as bad as never before ^2 . You see, that I had quite some luck in other areas too though, but getting a #1 position I can probably forget at this time. Maybe trying to go against an Inca game with a leader like Frederick isn't the best idea, but if I would have gotten more trades, then my positioni would be completely different. Mansa being so far advanced still can turn into an advantage though, if he can support me with techs 'til the very end.

Comments appreciated .

 

[BornInCantaloup]

@ Seraiel :
Props for not giving up already and the swift kill of Lincoln.

Your city management seems a little off in some places.
Maybe there are reasons I don't understand.
- Why stun growth in Washington by hiring specialists when you could work extra food positive tiles ? Floodplains cottages... Is this a GP you need to trigger a Golden Age ?
- If you want to get a faster Bank/Grocer in Boston, you should consider farming the 2 undeveloped grassland cottages the city has.
- Why improve Workshops in the New World, rather than grassland farms ? You're running Slavery, cities are small and you have a lot of happy cap margin. Farms would give better returns with faster growth & infra. First, you need to secure the food surplus.


On other things :
- It may be good for you to invest heavily into passive espionage points via advanced espionage buildings : Jails & stuff.
You'll be able to outpower Mansa, due to the sheer number of cities you have.

- Emancipation tactics require tremendous amounts of workers to be effective. Emancipation would be a poor civic unless you can terraform the land at high speed. You really need as many tiles as possible to benefit from the civic and justify not running Slavery/Caste.
With the land you have, and especially the New World, I wouldn't be surprised if a number in the range of 50+ workers was what it took to make an efficient switch into Emancipation.
Incidentally, it's better if cities already have infra set up and decent pop when you switch into Emancipation. That's another argument for a stronger focus on farms (rather than shops).

- Sushi coming up may turn the game well in your favour. Will you have a shot at Mining Inc ?
Interested to see how it turns out


EDIT :
Just realized you have Biology, too.
Really, there is little reason for workshops, here (@New World cities).

EDIT 2 :
Maybe the cost in pop is too high to justify spamming Espionage buildings. Dunno. Getting +100% is a lot cheaper in hammers & techs than getting the science multipliers. If your research is about to explode, however, science multipliers may be better.
It may be a better use for your pop to keep sailing Workers over the new world. There seems to be lots of Forest/Jungle tiles that will take a while to develop.
Maybe you can combine both investments.

 

[Pangaea]

I'm a bit confused by the first and last screenshot. In the first, Mansa has a ton of techs on you, like for instance Communism, but in the last screenshot you appear to have a lot of techs on him, again including Communism. What's up with that?

Both are from 580AD, but are these from different games?

 

[Seraiel]

@ Pangaea: The last screenshot is wrong, it's from the game to which I comopared from earlier. It should have been the military advisor showing how Mansa is willing to go to war aganist Lizzy. I didn't see this on Photobuckets thumbnails and linked the wrong screen and cannot correct it currently, because they try to fix their site again ^^ .

@ BiC: You will wonder, but I have about 23 Workers for all of those cities. I think again and again about building more, but hesitate very much, because Workers are so expensive. You imo. think too much about terraforming the land. There's a great advantage, if the land has an improvement, not mattering which one, and if one saves as much on Workers as possible. Farms are only needed where a city seriously lacks and when Sushi is still far away, I'm close before Sushi though, so everything will change in a few turns and the city you mentioned that should get Farms for the Bank has a surplus of 9, I guess you just got confused by the numbers because it's Marathon. I actually 4-pop-whipped the Bank only few turns later. The other cities are building National Wonders which I cannot whip, they need those Workshops, and I'm in the phase of the game where I switch civics more often than my clothing. I may run Slavery now, but next GA (current state of the game) I switched to Casste to have most of the Workshops and finish some GPs (like GMs to finally fuel my research) and I need to run Slavery soon again for all those Execs. Then I'll again switch the civic to either Caste or Emancipation after the Corps are spread, I'd prefer Emancipation but think I'll have a problem with Merchant-slots then, because as nice as Cottages are, they also provide more so I'll have even more population than usual but therefore less slots, so I'll probably switch to Emancipation, grow on all of the Cottages and then switch to Caste via Christo Redentor again ^^ . So Slavery, Caste, Slavery, Emancipation, Caste .
And yes, I need to starve the FP-city because I need that GP for the next GA.

I havn't thought about Espionage-multipliers, because they're completely unnecessary in normal games. Maybe I'll build a few Jails and Intelligence Agencies, chance for that is low though, as I mostly got all the science-modifiers already and can output very much research (still pathetic compared towards the GNP of Mansa, but my GNP are really while his are also a lot from the Wonders) .
If I btw. don't get Mining Inc., I'll give up the game. Chances I'll get it are there though. With the new GA I'll reach Medicine in 6T, then I'll trade for Steam Power, Economics and Corporation so only Railroad would be missing. Mansa already has it, I already prayed that he doesn't get a GE or if, uses it on something useless like the SoL which I'm going to get in almost any case with the new GA which brought it down from 50 to 25T in the IW city .

I'll take the advice to build a few more Workers though. The new world cities need 2 Workers each at least, that's the problem, I could basically use my whole Workerforce over there. I have a good timewindow for this though because of Slavery for Execs and can use Sushi to 1T build those Workers . Better than to invest the resources now while securing the Corps is still 1st priority .

 

[Seraiel]

Interesting happening: I prayed for a chance and as unbelievable as it sounds, but I got 6 random events in 10T . 1 was the senator event, unfortunately didn't realize that I could get a free Barracks by building the HE for Failgoold in every city so I selected +1 instead of free +2 from every Barracks, but then I got 400 , 2800 for medicine, 2 times the event where one can trade the complete of one city against +3 relations (with my luck this ofc. needed to be the capital + the NP city ^^ ) and what's really unbelievable, is, that I got the quest "the best defense" which requires to build 3 Castles before Economics and I was able to finish it because I was in a GA, could switch to Slavery and whip 3 Castles 1 turn before I traded for Economics and Rifling with Lizzy, who is now permanently friendly to me like Mansa and that without any need to spend points . Traded Medicine against Steampower before, traded Steampower against Corporation (ofc. with Lizzy because I couldn't trade it from Mansa as she ofc. traded Rifling instantly and she even payed him in addition -.- ) and founded Sushi . Only +15 because Terra, but it'll be +20 once I get the resources from Mansa and Lizzy :







Mansa is still crazy and produces 2100 GNP while I'm at 1400, which is above Lizzy (remember that I'm in a GA though) and I learned that Ownage City really deserves its name:



Mansa unloaded a Settler and 2 Knights in it because he probably wanted to settle a spot behind the mountain on the mainland .

Lizzy went for Railroads which is good, as I can research AL and trade it for it and I even got the tiny chance of getting a tech from Mansa for it aswell, because I ordered him to research Artillery (I told HIM and as he heard my wish, I'm quite confident he heard this one aswell, because Lizzy going Rifling was also something that I prayed for and Mansa is probably going Combustion which as he neither had AL nor Rifling, which is basically all still the last possibilities that I have ^^ ) . Really good to have mighty friends sometimes .

Beginning to love this game, probably until Mansa will get that lucky GE 1T before I can trade for Mining (not) . Now I got the enormous task to get AL in as little turns as possible while I got Sushi... Pangaea already knows that this will be incredibly hard, but you others can imagine it when I write that Lizzy will reach Railroads in 20T and I'd need 16T if I had the money to research with 100%, I can only afford a maximum of 60% currently though and only have 1000 in the bank, which is half of what the spread only will cost (I hope it's also 70 / city like on normal and not 210 like it would be logical on Marathon, because if it's 210 I wouldn't even be able to spread to 5 cities / turn as I currently create 400 GPT at 0%. It'll get a little better after GE-rushing the WS and I get a Grocer in the capital aswell, but should it really be 210 / city, that'd be a drop in the ocean.

 

[Pangaea]

After completing the Nobles Club 173 game (1400AD Immortal Conquest on Hemispheres), I went back to this other Pericles game yesterday. Isabella really took the pi**, and insta-upgraded all five archers to longbows (plus more elsewhere), so wiping her seemed utterly pointless. But I managed to take Barcelona, which was a really nice city. Had to take it, to get control of the marble (damn culture). Instead of capping her, we peaced out normally, and I sent the army towards Sitting Bull. Have now managed to take 3 cities from him, but he has now got Feudalism and his absurdly OP Longbows. City Guardian 3 Archers are bad enough, but CG3 Longbows...?

Therefore I'm thinking about peacing out with him too (he doesn't want to cap though, the hardarse that he is). I do have access to Maces now, but I'm thinking that maybe it's better to sit back a bit and get up unis and (non-stone) Oxford instead of whipping the cities into the ground to get out maces and a gajillion catas. Right now I have about 10 elephants + 10 catas, and the odd phalanx and swordman. Should be enough to take one more city, but I won't get all three. That is what I really wanted, because then I'd get border pressure with Joao, who is now Friendly, so he would probably peace vassal to me at some point.

Spoiler :

Very recently Isabella peace vassaled to Charlie, so maybe it was a mistake to not cap her. I hoped she wouldn't be so weak she'd peace vassal without border pressure to anybody but me, and then take her out later.

Currently in a GA because I needed to switch to Buro, and due to that have got two GSs, so can double-bulb Edu and get started on universities. No chance to get stone Not running caste either, as I needed slavery for the war effort, nor do I have Philo yet, so no Pacifism either. Don't have NE either (but have got the HE), as I don't see a great site for NE except Barcelona, which was cottaged by Izzy. But as I think WT said (or some other Civ-genius), PHI is like having NE in every single city.

Two more points I almost forgot: Got up GLib in the capital, and chopped out MoM in one of the former Spanish cities surrounded by forests.

Anyhow... how would you guys proceed here?


Addendum: Double-bulbed Edu and am considering what to do next

Spoiler :

AIs usually go for Guilds and Engineering, making them less desirable, but...
Engineering: Gives me trebs, which will be better against CG3 Longbows than catas
Guilds: Knights will be faster and less hopeless against those OP-bows I guess. Immune to first strikes, which helps a little.
Gunpowder: Muskets aren't all that much to write home about, but still decent.

Or, I can simply peace out, focus more on infra, and come back later with a bigger force, once Oxford is up and I've got out trebs and maces, or something even better. 10 turns isn't that much. But I'll get another "declaring on my friend", which currently would put Joao down to Pleased I think (and I already have +4 for religion and civic).

 

[bcool]

What I remember from my attempt to get a fast space race victory on marathon speed was that using liberalism for democracy was at least not a waste.

The cottage spam and emancipation adoption wasn't instead of corporations it was just slight side step on the path to corporations.

You still end up going with corporations and end up switching out of emancipation at the last stages of the game to maximize the usefulness of corporations (dipping into slavery and then ending with caste system). The extra commerce from all the accelerated cottages help makes up for the loss of research in not using liberalism for something else. Plus the extra commerce from the cottages keeps on giving into the later stages of the game. Nothing is better than running a town under a golden age with a financial leader.

It is worth the delay in getting to corporations? Maybe. A better or more patient player might make it work better than a corporations only deity game. But it isn't a lot better.

 

[Seraiel]

@ Pangaea: Lot's of hate against the AIs, hmm?

You need to decide on a victory condition. You only need Oxford if you go to Space. Also, you should build the NE in the capital, it's the best site you got and the capital can build it fast aswell, probably even has a Market to create a GM.

Also forget about war with Trebs, CG3 Longbows are horrible. Imo. , you should tech to Cavalry if you have to fight those, as even Cuirrassiers aren't good against them. Check if you got a chance to maybe Lib Rifling, if so, use Rifles, Cavalries and Spy-revolts to win the game.

 

[Pangaea]

@ Pangaea: Lot's of hate against the AIs, hmm?

Not half as much as the RNG. Losing at 99% Sure, that's what makes the world go round and round. A HA easily beating a Combat Elephant at 1.2% odds? Sure, no problem, that's routine.

You need to decide on a victory condition. You only need Oxford if you go to Space. Also, you should build the NE in the capital, it's the best site you got and the capital can build it fast aswell, probably even has a Market to create a GM.

Also forget about war with Trebs, CG3 Longbows are horrible. Imo. , you should tech to Cavalry if you have to fight those, as even Cuirrassiers aren't good against them. Check if you got a chance to maybe Lib Rifling, if so, use Rifles, Cavalries and Spy-revolts to win the game.

But Sitting Bull**** is dead Couldn't let another AI get away with scaring me off with OP-bows. Okay, CG3 OP-bows are sickening, but he didn't have that many, and none of his cities were on hills. Teched Engineering btw, and although none of the trebs saw battle (first one a turn away), the extra speed helped the maces get to the frontlines faster.

Ended up playing on after several hours with no feedback, and put the NE in the capital, so hopefully that was a good call Figured the GLib was already there, so it would be a decent enough spot. Still room for Oxford if I want it, and think I do. Reckon I'll try for a Cuirs war, as the lay of the land is so awkward for slow movers, but with half-priced libraries and universities, getting Oxford won't be that brutal, although there isn't stone nearby.

Joao's vassaling hover text has gone from "We can't betray our friends" during the war to "We're doing fine on our own" now after it, but I do hope it will be possible to peace vassal him, and then later on the army can focus on the north.

Spoiler :

Now it's recovery time, and I need to make a decision on what to try to get with Liberalism. Am thinking a Cuirs war, so that would mean MT. Could have got Philo if I had let SB live, but he had annoyed me enough already with spies and bullcrap rng calls, so he needed to die.

 

[Seraiel]

We can't betray our close friends afaik is, when you're in war with someone and Joao cannot declare war on him because he's i. e. pleased towards that person. Logical, that he cannot vassal towards you then. We're doing fine on our own means he either has too much land (you need 2 times his land) or that you need more military power (you need at least 1.5 times his power) . If those 2 criteria are fulfilled, you can peacevassal someone when you got landborders (8 tiles) . If you don't have those, you simply need 3 times his power. There's also an alternative to 2 times the land which is 2 times the population, but that is basically unreachable as you know yourself.

NE in the capital if it has the GL is definitely a good call. The GL is 10 , you'd need to be able to hire more than 3 Specialists somewhere, before the NE would even be thinkable, the capital is also a lot faster in building though, so unless you already have a city with good infrastructure and , the capital is the best choice often. It's just unusual for us, because we usually start with 2 Golds and that drains heavily on the . The more , the shorter the game, the better the NE is in the capital. TGL is always a reason for the NE.

Btw.: I also hate the RNG currently. It's always gifting me something and shortly after I lose something. Like Mansa gets a GA, so I can get Mining Inc. , next turn he has AL 1T before I got it so I can neither trade for Gold nor for a tech while I'd need both so hard in my current round. I was left with 0 trades in that round and the AIs got several GMs and I couldn't trade for thousands of aswell, but then I always kept playing because good things happened, like i. e. also this turn, when I got the 7th good random event and got 1600 for free, but then ofc. , 3 of my Spies had to be discovered and 2 Execs failed... Seems we both need to bite currently. The only way I can stay positive is, that I hope I'm just having bad luck to have especially much good luck in the upcoming GOTM, should I have as much bad luck in that game again, I'll get seriously frustrated. No idea if this is just CIV and if my expectations are just off, I only remember things like me having had to give up a game on which I worked superhard before my hiatus and WT winning so many more battles in GM-134 that he conquers the map with HAs. Then however, in GM-137 I had decent luck, but my stance towards RNG also more and more changes from pleased to cautious to annoyed (currently) to hopefully not furious...
Aa bigger foe of me though is the rounding in CIV. Things are simply always rounded towards the worse option, and the DEVs weren't even able of programming whipping in the way, that 2-pop whips with Forges i. e. give 65 (2* 37.5) . It's really a wonder, I make almost no errors, am annoyed if I make one, realize I know almost nothing again and again and feel like getting punished, while someone that's stupid and doesn't care is happy and feels proud of himself for his biceps or his car . I'll stop now, before someone thinks that I'm actually complaining, CIV's only a game and I've enough to be thankful for. Plz try to take my advice on cursing though and try to cut back on it, it's my experience, that one has more luck if one doesn't curse. Don't think that I wouldn't sometimes (unintendedly) . I know every curse has a reason and as Slipknot sang, "every reason is a right to hate" , but let's try to laugh about such texts and better try to get into the position where we could write something like "I came, I saw and I won" , and that without Praets ^^ .

 

[Seraiel]

What I remember from my attempt to get a fast space race victory on marathon speed was that using liberalism for democracy was at least not a waste.

The cottage spam and emancipation adoption wasn't instead of corporations it was just slight side step on the path to corporations.

You still end up going with corporations and end up switching out of emancipation at the last stages of the game to maximize the usefulness of corporations (dipping into slavery and then ending with caste system). The extra commerce from all the accelerated cottages help makes up for the loss of research in not using liberalism for something else. Plus the extra commerce from the cottages keeps on giving into the later stages of the game. Nothing is better than running a town under a golden age with a financial leader.

It is worth the delay in getting to corporations? Maybe. A better or more patient player might make it work better than a corporations only deity game. But it isn't a lot better.

In my current game I found out 2 things:

1. The way bcool mentions, so very early Democracy to run before Corporations seems to be the only way if wanting Corporations. In my current game, I'm trying to switch into Emancipation for a long time already, and it's simply not possible because once one has Corporations, Slavery is needed. After that, everything except Caste is simply inefficient. It's not even a matter if one has enough Specialist-slots or not, it's just that a Scientist gives 6 yields while an Engineer only gives 5, a Spy only gives 4, Priest 5, those little differences are actually huge differences with the number of cities and number of Specialists we run. Apart from that, GP-generation is just pure luck without Caste. Generating GPs is just not possible in late game anymore with 4 Merchant slots, and GMs are the only GPs that make sense if not needing GPs for a GA. A GP in my game currently costs 4200 , I play a PHI leader and run Pacifism and it still takes 50 turns. I'm generating GPs in 5 or 6 different cities, every time one finishes even with 6 Specialists hired, the next one takes 10 turns longer so a GP may take up to 100T to actually complete when only running Merchants and 2-3 Scientists, as Scientists at least have an ok value and lots of the modern era techs can be bulbed with them, all others, Engineers, Prophets and Artists add up to the inefficiency of the Specialists themselves and the game proceeds so fast, that even with Emancipation, only really early Cottages have the chance to even get a Village, all the Cottages past Chemistry just don't because it takes forever and there's no chance to work them with all the whips that are absolutely necessary.

2. Not getting the Kremlin almost is a game-breaker. I calculated the loss to be 3000 (tiny map! ) if only whipping Execs, but that's again not possible with Sushi. Past Sushi, one needs to build Wealth in almost all cities so reaching Mining and Assembly Line is possible, it's also the best way, because every turn one gets Mining earlier is more than any buildings could give. Past the trifecta though, there are tons of buildings and cities grow faster than getting Specialist-slots is possible.

I btw. have no idea, how doing with 0.66 Workers / city shall be possible. I got that number currently, I got unimproved tiles forcing me to run Specialists and I cannot even build Railroads. I had 1 Worker / city for most of the game so the intersection is about 0.8-0.9. Seems, one really has to force onesself to really have 1 Worker / city + 1 extra for the capital. Would have done so if I would have had the chance, but with Mansa having 3 times my GNP for most of the game, building anything other than Wealth / Research already is impossible. Next time something like in this game should happen to me, I'll know early that I need to start a new one. Even the best gaming can't make up for missing trades, curious how far I'll land behind ShannonCT. So many wasted hours for a game that will get a pathetic amount of points because of the Quattromaster formula .

 

[Pangaea]

We can't betray our close friends afaik is, when you're in war with someone and Joao cannot declare war on him because he's i. e. pleased towards that person. Logical, that he cannot vassal towards you then. We're doing fine on our own means he either has too much land (you need 2 times his land) or that you need more military power (you need at least 1.5 times his power) . If those 2 criteria are fulfilled, you can peacevassal someone when you got landborders (8 tiles) . If you don't have those, you simply need 3 times his power. There's also an alternative to 2 times the land which is 2 times the population, but that is basically unreachable as you know yourself.

Thanks for that, although I was aware of it Not got up courthouses yet (always so much to do in this era), so have even lost eps on Darius, so even less idea how strong of an army Joao has, but I do hope it's possible to get him to peace vassal. The bigger issue is probably whether he has a below average military power or not - due to Isabella still being alive and being bottom.

Remember he has the GLH in the closest border city of Oporto, though, and my army is right there.... Need to have a think once I open the game again

NE in the capital if it has the GL is definitely a good call. The GL is 10 , you'd need to be able to hire more than 3 Specialists somewhere, before the NE would even be thinkable, the capital is also a lot faster in building though, so unless you already have a city with good infrastructure and , the capital is the best choice often. It's just unusual for us, because we usually start with 2 Golds and that drains heavily on the . The more , the shorter the game, the better the NE is in the capital. TGL is always a reason for the NE.

That's why I eventually put the NE there too, having the GLib there makes it a solid boost. However, due to that fact, it also makes it difficult to get a GM without caste, as the chance will be below 50% (I did have a market there). In the last screenshot I had begun working merchants, but of course it's far from a sure thing. Thankfully GS can still be useful for bulbing. Ofc, the big 'fear' is getting a GArtist, though at least if that happens I can blow him on a GA again. Captured Paya, so even if Philo should continue to be off the market, I can switch into Pacifism.

The RNG can be so bloody evil at times. It really does drive me mad. It's so bad that I'm nervous when attacking at 99% odds. "Will he survive? Pleeeease."

Sounds like your game is very tricky, so well done on keeping up with it. Hopefully you are rewarded with a new #1, though it may be close, or impossible(?), as the date you are trying to beat is pretty good.

I noticed that there are actually surprisingly few dates for Immortal Domination on these normal/standard settings. Best date has passed centuries ago, but at least I can get a decent placement just by finishing, so I'll probably try for domination. It can oddly be tricky to trigger though, so I may need to fully kill off AIs, or start razing cities en masse.

Of course things would have been much better with a 2x-gold start and easy opponents, but seriously, running mapfinder before every game (all night, which is noisy, as I'm a 'light' sleeper), checking out ever so many starts just to get going is tedious. This map at least has a really good capital with double food and 12 cottage sites, which is also an incentive to building Oxford even if going for a war game. The extra research should help get to rifles / cavalry faster when most of the rest of the empire needs to be whipped into the ground.


(edit) Off the top of my head, I think the GLib is 8 and not 10 btw. 3x2 for free scientists, plus 2 for the building itself. And that sort of gets doubled when playing a PHI leader.

 

[Pangaea]

Small point: Took a look at this article, which I hope is still correct. War elephants cost 60h and provide 8000 "soldiers", while maces cost 70h and provide 9000 soldiers. Makes more sense to mass produce WEs then, especially if I go on the rampage later with Cuirs.

Not a big difference, but every small bit, right? If it helps get him to vassal :shrug:

 

[Seraiel]

Yes, the GL is 8 , no idea why I thought that it's 10, I never build it, because it obsoletes so fast and because Literature is off-path.

Regarding Courthouses and Domination:

1. Normally, you shouldn't need more Courthouses than the ones for the Forbidden Palace at most. Calculate how much 4 population would get you further, 4 population is massive.

2. The fastest way towards Domination is to vassal as much as possible imo. . You can also try to go for Conquest by the same method, then you only need to make sure, that you stay below the domination limit so don't conquer more than needed but directly take the capital, vassal, further, capital, vassal, win. Sossos had a 12xx AD Standard Normal win, I think yyeah has taken over that slot now, but Sossos game was also from a normal start and with a quite weak leader, he won the game against an extremely strong Justinian with mostly Axepult and Musketreb.

In my game it seems impossible to get a #1, i'm simply getting 0 trades from Mansa. I still have fun, because I notice, that I'm on a really high level currently again. I make very few errors when playing slow, I got really good insights into Spaceraces and I've reached a point, where even micro has become much easier and therefore less tedious.