The Hall of Players

[elitetroops]

Thanks for the input! Okay, I had it the wrong way around then with holy cities. Maybe I got that impression as most big cities usually already have a religion when I found a new religion.

Rostov was conquered before Ecbatana, yes. No idea when they were founded. So 3.5 would round down in this case? That explains it.

 

[Seraiel]

Somebody like Pollina will probably know this off the top of her head, but I believe bigger cities (non-capital) without a religion has a higher chance to found the religions.

This time Pollina isn't needed because I'm there .

The formula for the foundation of a holy-city afaik is city size / # of religions. The capital gets additionally divided by 8 which is why founding a religion in the capital is basically impossible with 2 cities.

 

[Seraiel]

I don't know the exact rules for Forest-assignment but always assumed that plays a role because even with a Forest being nearer to a city having less so i. e. being 3rd ring for that city but 4th for the other one the one with the higher gets chosen from my experience.

Ofc. Pangaea's explanation also makes logical sense and wouldn't speak against that observation from me as the later founded city is likely to have less . Maybe my explanation is not as good and his is better so stick to that one.

 

[elitetroops]

This time Pollina isn't needed because I'm there .

The formula for the foundation of a holy-city afaik is city size / # of religions. The capital gets additionally divided by 8 which is why founding a religion in the capital is basically impossible with 2 cities.

Thank you!

I remembered size mattered for this, but had it the wrong way around. I even whipped a city on Ramesses border down to pop 1 the turn before I got tao, hoping it would be founded there, so that I could gift it to Ramesses to shrine it for me. I'll know better next time.

 

[elitetroops]

I just found out that the AI is smarter than I thought. Ramesses was building some wonder in his capital, could see from the Espionage screen that he had 1000 hammers invested into something. Was hoping he would build Hagia Sophia for me. Then he popped a Great Engineer and finished Chichen Itza the next turn. At first I got , thinking he burned the GE to finish the almost finished Chicken Pizza, but then I saw on the espionage screen that he still had 1000 hammers invested into something and the very next turn he completed Hagia Sophia in capital as well. Looks like he changed builds to use the GE on a wonder with no hammers invested, then finished the part built wonder with a whip after that. Good boy!

Anyway, now he had mids, Parth and Hagia Sophia. Is there a more clear way to say "please kill me"? Kind of sucks to fail the 94% spy revolt mission when you have a stack of HAs outside his 85% Chichen Itza hill capital. But in the end it doesn't really matter, because no matter what Seraiel thinks, HAs are still awesome!

Hagia Sophia seems crazy overpowered on marathon. Since only a very small percentage of worker turns are wasted on movement, it is essentially increasing my worker force by 50%. That's like capturing 18 workers with no added maintenance.

I've decided to go for UN instead of espionage. With mids and Parth, I'll start a golden age to finally adopt a religion, go Rep/Caste/Paci and pump out a couple of GMs to send to ToA on the other continent. That should hopefully give me enough gold to keep teching for a long time. Lib Radio is the target, should be doable with an empire like this. I doubt I'll even build an academy in capital anymore, seems more valuable to use GP on Golden Ages. Haven't been plannig for Oxford either, no forests left to chop in capital. I doubt that would be worth it either as there won't be much left to tech after edu. Have to go Astro first in any case.

 

[WastinTime]

. But in the end it doesn't really matter, because no matter what Seraiel thinks, HAs are still awesome!

true dat

 

[elitetroops]

Okay, finally met the other continent. Despite founding the 5 first religions, they still managed to somehow get together in a huge religious lovefest over there. By the time I found them, they all had Lit, Feudalism, Construction and Theo on me. I had Compass, Optics, Philo and CS on them. Almost completed Astro by then also. My plan earlier was to get Lit, Construction and Theo in a peace deal from Ramesses, but now I killed him completely instead. Anyway, their tech pace is pretty fast, might not be able to Lib Radio. Maybe settle for Physics instead, or Electricity, in case I need Physics GS for Golden Age.

Now I have to figure out how to get the votes. They all really love each other. Except the lone backwards Buddhist hate target, Isabella. I suppose I could get them all into a mutual war with Isabella, but that would also increase their love for each other, so maybe not worth it. Their mutual love should come to an end once they get access to Free Religion, I hope. I can use spies to switch them into Free Religion if they don't do it on their own. I currently have 30% of world population, should go up as my fresh conquered cities get a chance to grow.

I'm also considering sending in my army to kill Isabella, then liberate the cities to whoever they belong to, looks like 2-3 cities for Asoka, 2 for Washington and 2 for Roosevelt. Not entirely sure as I haven't located all capitals yet. Nor do I have open borders with Isabella. However, I'm CRE, meaning I will be generating culture as soon as cities come out of resistance. How does this affect my possibilities of liberating cities? I notice I cannot liberate any of the cities I conquered from Ramesses to Freddy or Peter, despite their capitals being closer to the cities in question. Is there a limit on how much culture I can have in the city? Looks like >50%...

Mansa is in the north. If I can find some free arctic lands to the north of him, I could send in a couple of settlers to either liberate cities to him, or make him a land target for peace vassaling. Maybe I could make some more peace vassals also, if I find the spots to put down my settlers. Freddy (10 cities) is already willing to peace vassal to me. Not sure if it's worth it though, I should easily get him to Friendly anyway, and if the other civs don't end up liking him, he might prevent me from getting some votes, right?

As long as they don't make Peter (on my continent) their worst enemy, I can also build UN and gift the city to him to make him my opponent, right? Hammurabi is the largest civ on the other continent. He likes Bureaucracy, I like Bureaucracy, we are a match made in heaven. His votes should be a lock as long as he's not running against me.

So, what am I forgetting? I'm currently gifting them all 4-5 resources each for "appreciate the years blablabla" bonus. I'll have to give in to all demands and requests, which sucks if they want something that gets them towards lib... And they'll happily trade around what they ask for as well. What else should I be doing?

Since I met them so late, I might not get much of "you shared your technological discoveries with us" bonus. But for that it doesn't matter if I give them the tech right before they finish researching it themselves, right? With my empire originally set up for espionage, I can easily keep track of what everyone is researching.

Here is the bunch I'm dealing with (Freddy and Peter on my continent):

Spoiler :

I'll have to choose who to share favorite civs with. Roosevelt is larger than Mansa, might have to go Merc. Free Religion is a given, as is Bureau, if I can make sure Hammurabi isn't my opponent. Then either Rep or US. Might need US to rush buy UN if I can't get my hands on a GE.

 

[elitetroops]

The very next turn their entire continent declared war on Isabella. I declared as well to get in on the action. Will have to consider if I want to send units there to take something from her. She at least has the Buddhist Shrine, might be worth it.

 

[elitetroops]

What's up with this?

Spoiler :

399 votes required for AP victory, but I count only 276 votes in the world? If I double the amount of votes shown for the Hindu civs I get 532 total votes. 0.75 x 532 = 399. Bug in BUFFY?

As you can see the Hindu lovefest over there is quite crazy. I wonder if I should be worried that someone swings it enough in their favor to grab an AP victory. Hindu randomly spread to me, meaning it could spread to Peter and Freddy as well. Maybe I should spread it around a bit in my own lands for more votes. Probably not worth it. Hammy would need all the Full member votes to win and he's currently +4 behind on Washington. He shouldn't be able to catch up, I hope.

 

[Seraiel]

@ elitetroops:

The vote for diplomatic victory is not available unless all civs have at least 1 city with the AP-religion. About the 399 votes I don't know anything, STW for sure will but there are also AP-guides that list all mechanics iirc. . BUFFY is not 100% accurate there though, sometimes it estimate i. e. 40% votes and then one civ gets 60%+ so far more (and less also ofc. possible) than the given margin of error.

Regarding the love-fiest I wonder if it would not make more sense to conquer a Hindu city, maybe Mansa, Isabella or Frederick have one?

Getting the bonus for shared techonological discoveries late is possible aswell with some civs, if your research is strong you can easily get 10-15 techs and you can trade everything to everybody right before the vote. 1T befor completition should be np aswell.

 

[elitetroops]

It seems the screen hadn't registered Hindu as AP religion yet. That pic was from the same turn it was built. Next turn the votes were correct.

I have to monitor the situation. So far no problem as Hindu hasn't spread to Peter or Freddy yet. Vicky is gathering all the Hindu votes, putting her at 402/480 at the moment. Mainly I have to watch out that Hammy or Vicky won't go Free Religion right before the next vote. That could give the other one the victory, if the AP victory vote is available by then. But if it spreads to one of Peter's cities, I can take it from him before the vote, shouldn't be a problem.

Not sure what you mean by conquering a Hindu city from Mansa. Did you mean to join the lovefest? I have some votes myself already. Maybe I could have done that, but would have taken too long to spread Hindu for Paci bonus. Maybe 5 turns of OR/Slavery would have been enough, but I think the Free Religion approach should work just as well.

 

[Seraiel]

Yes, I ment join the love-fiest. From my experience only the fewest AIs run FR freely so if you switch them I assume that they'll switch back every 5-20T creating a lot of work. You also asked how you could secure votes and the love-fiest would just be a very easy solution. If you can start a GA, spreading a religion towards the GP-Farms is easily possible in 5T.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

TAP Religious Leader Diplomatic Victory (RLDV) votes are quite simple. A RLDV candidate must have 75% of the total cast votes to win. You must have less than 75% of the vote yourself (Can not self vote RLDV). A leader's vote is doubled if his state religion is the TAP religion.

 

[elitetroops]

Okay, wrapped it up in 720 AD.

Spoiler :

I'm pretty pleased with the date, considering that I didn't plan for this to be a UN game, or even a teching game, until around 400 BC. Never got an Academy or Oxford. Not even University in cap. It was chopped bare by the time I decided to tech further down the tech tree and had no hammers to work. Having all those in place would have increased my late game teching power with about 20%.

Despite all the early failures, like teching towards Oracle and then CoL and missing both, which earned me nothing and delayed my HA rush with maybe 50 turns, the one thing that bugs me the most is that I miscalculated the rush buying cost for UN and was 6000 short when I wanted to buy it. Took me 3 turns of banking gold before I could finish it.

Might try another one of these later on a higher difficulty, planning for UN from T0. Was quite a fun game, but tedious. You guys who are planning to manage a 200 city empire are insane.

 

[elitetroops]

Yes, I ment join the love-fiest. From my experience only the fewest AIs run FR freely so if you switch them I assume that they'll switch back every 5-20T creating a lot of work. You also asked how you could secure votes and the love-fiest would just be a very easy solution. If you can start a GA, spreading a religion towards the GP-Farms is easily possible in 5T.

I didn't need them to stay in Free Religion, except Asoka who has it as favorite civic. I only needed them out of Hinduism for the first election as I would be running against Hammurabi in that one. I'm not sure if I could have competed with Hammurabi even if I went Hinduism myself, as everyone on the other continent already had built up +5 to +8 shared religion bonuses with him. They had also all been fighting Isabella together for a lot of shared war bonuses. After getting elected, I gifted UN to Peter and there was no question anymore about who would win the victory vote. Getting a random event that gave me +1 diplo with all leaders in the world 1 turn before reaching Mass Media sure helped as well.

I had assumed that once an AI gets into their favorite civic, they would stay there for a while. Roosevelt proved me wrong. I bribed him into merc after gifting him banking, but a few turns later he switched back to decentralization.

I never got any "you have shared your technological discoveries" with Washington on Vicky. They both need 20 techs for that. Must have been close though as I had +4 with Mansa (needs 5) and +2 with Hammurabi (needs 10). Also, +5 with Freddy, meaning I provided him with at least 35 techs over the course of the game.

I really should have killed Freddy as well though. It just seemed like to much of a hassle as he was on a long thin peninsula with capital at the far end. If GLH had been on my continent, I surely would have killed him as almost all of his cities were coastal.

I'm thinking Medium and Small for my next UN game. On that map I think you can choose which AI go on which continent, so I will spam my own continent with wonder whores (GLH, mids...) and the other continent with people who are easy to please in a short time. (Edit: Doesn't seem to work. Maybe I remember the wrong map script.) It only has about half the amount of land compared to a low sea level continents map, but I still counted that there should be room for 60-70 cities by conquering the own half of the world, if all good island spots are settled as well. Leader choice depends on difficulty. If I go immortal, I probably pick Willem or Zara. If deity, Darius is the way to go. I'd be boxed in so fast that immortals is a must.

 

[Seraiel]

I'm thinking Medium and Small for my next UN game. On that map I think you can choose which AI go on which continent, so I will spam my own continent with wonder whores (GLH, mids...) and the other continent with people who are easy to please in a short time. (Edit: Doesn't seem to work. Maybe I remember the wrong map script.) It only has about half the amount of land compared to a low sea level continents map, but I still counted that there should be room for 60-70 cities by conquering the own half of the world, if all good island spots are settled as well. Leader choice depends on difficulty. If I go immortal, I probably pick Willem or Zara. If deity, Darius is the way to go. I'd be boxed in so fast that immortals is a must.

I remember being able to choose which AI to be on my continent aswell but I played a very small Medium and Small map with only 2 AIs but afaik the position that Mansa had made him appear on my continent in 100% of the cases. Don't know if he was 2nd or 3rd civ.

 

[elitetroops]

Now I'm totally confused by the UN rush buying cost. The formula I can find is 3/, which should double for wonders to 6/. Hammers already invested, of course, not cold rushing. This seems to apply to buildings and other wonders in the game. However, UN cost me 12/, with hammers already invested into the build. Is there a special multiplier for UN alone?

Edit: found it.

<iHurryCostModifier>300</iHurryCostModifier>

UN, AP and Space Elevator have a multiplier of 4 instead of 2.

 

[elitetroops]

I remember being able to choose which AI to be on my continent aswell but I played a very small Medium and Small map with only 2 AIs but afaik the position that Mansa had made him appear on my continent in 100% of the cases. Don't know if he was 2nd or 3rd civ.

It seems it actually might work, but not with 100% certainty on large maps with max opponents. I generated some maps with map finder and found that most of the time I would have the same 6 AI in my half of the world. Only rarely I would find myself with another bunch. Unfortunately I don't remember the exact order I selected the AI when creating the game, must do some more research to find out how to choose them to get the correct layout.

The Medium and Small map is pretty crazy. With a large low sealevel map, normal continents, the main continent feels much smaller than a standard sized micro pangaea, with the same amount of AI on it. It might not be smaller, but it's more compact. On immortal this means insane amounts of worker steals. On marathon speed you can have 5-6 workers before even teching the first tech. Maybe that's not even a good idea, since maintenance costs are kicking in. Also makes starting techs very important. AG+The Wheel would be ideal.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Someone posted recently about when Vassals are created taking the number of opponents above the maximum allowed. I can't find where the comment was but have updated the rules page to clarify that it is only the game setup stage that matters for this rule.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Any one interested in playing in this SGOTM?

http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=565709

I'd like to play it with some fellow HOF players. I'd be pleased to join an already established team or help organize a new team if necessary.

The signup thread was created yesterday and the sign up deadline is April 24th. Discussion threads open May 1st. The starting game saves are available May 8th. The game must be completed by Aug 31st!

Have a great day!