The Hall of Players

[Noble Zarkon]

and to due to a bug IND is only half as much an incentive as the others.

Care to explain?

Mansa is two of those, so extremely likely to go culture.

Mansa is great for winning an OCC/PA/Culture game though! Trying to work out a good opponent, useless who won't attack you - been playing about with Saladin, thinking about Toku - his "Peace Military" is only 4 and any troops he brings are likely to be old and obsolete!

 

[elitetroops]

The thought of OCC/PA/culture had never crossed my mind before... In the next game I wanted to test an idea to possibly speed up Mansa's culture victory, but he was useless in that game so I got my Space win with Asoka instead.

Would an OCC/PA/culture win count as espionage if you run a spread culture mission somewhere, even if actual espionage victory mechanics would be close to impossible to use in OCC? (I would say impossible to use, but you never know when WT is in the thread... )

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Would an OCC/PA/culture win count as espionage if you run a spread culture mission somewhere

It would be quite tough to have enough cultural pressure on a city to be able to spread culture to it but not impossible I reckon.

 

[WastinTime]

Care to explain?

I discovered this bug many many years ago. It's been discussed--usually in the OCC space or OCC culture HoF gauntlets or if there was a GotM using OCC.
It's clear in the code & XML that each of those traits was supposed to give the same +4 modifier to whether they go for culture, but IND only gave +2.
I'd have to dig to find the details again if you really wanna know.

 

[WastinTime]

It would be quite tough to have enough cultural pressure on a city to be able to spread culture to it but not impossible I reckon.

It doesn't take more than 1 culture to be 'enough' pressure to use the mission.
On Deity, and on a tight map, the AI always surrounds you and settles in your 3rd or 4th ring, so it'd be pretty easy to do a mission.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

It's clear in the code & XML that each of those traits was supposed to give the same +4 modifier to whether they go for culture, but IND only gave +2.

Ah I see, you're talking about the code the AI uses to choose a victory condition.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

On Deity, and on a tight map, the AI always surrounds you and settles in your 3rd or 4th ring, so it'd be pretty easy to do a mission.

On lower levels you often have to settle a couple of cities in the AI's face to get it to work

 

[elitetroops]

It would be quite tough to have enough cultural pressure on a city to be able to spread culture to it but not impossible I reckon.

But what would it help to spread your culture when you cannot capture the city in OCC? Or is culture also shared in PA, so if I spread my culture and my PA partner captures the city it would count as his?

Edit: oh, you probably meant it'd be hard to do to achieve a fake espionage victory if you can't do any mission in the first place. Would be up to RNG at least.

 

[elitetroops]

Ice Age domination game with a pretty crazy start. Popped BW and BFC copper T2, IW a few turns later. T40 I capture a city with iron and by T50 I'd be ready to put 10 math powered prechops into swords. Of course continent is about 20 tiles short of domination limit... I suppose this could be turned into a pretty decent espionage game, maybe even normal culture since Asoka and Gandhi founded all three early religions on my continent. Gonna set it aside until I figure out what to do with it.

 

[Pangaea]

What are people's take on early priorities in games where you intend to go to space? In an Epic game I started recently with Frederick (sounds good on paper, many cheap buildings I need), I was able to capture many cities early with HAs. Tried to take on de Gaulle too, but had bad combat luck so had to peace out after one city (Paris with Hanging Garden, but sadly no Mids). Usually I try to grab the Music GA after getting to Civil Service. Anyway, some options. Which of these do you prefer and would probably lead to a faster date?

• Try to grab the Music Great Artist for launching a GA (painful to switch civics on Epic, 2 turns just for a single switch already)
• Go for Paper-Edu-Oxford already right after CS
• Construction for Elepults
• One step further, for Engineering and Trebs (need some techs for that though, and Machinery isn't cheap)
• Something else that I didn't think of now in the early morning

Think my default play has been the Music GA to be honest, but I'm not sure if it is the best move. Perhaps it's better long-term to go for siege and continue the warfare with either cats or trebs, even if you lose out on the free Great Artist?

Again I'm also reminded of a post a few pages back, where I speculated about dropping Mansa. He can be so good if he researches the "right" techs, but can also be quite detrimental by sharing around dangerous techs willy-nilly, like Feudalism and Civil Service. Plus, it can make getting something nice from Lib more tricky due to Paper and Education going around, and once I see at least one AI capable of teching Liberalism, I get very nervous about losing it.

Edit: Tagging @Fish Man since he's a space expert.

 

[elitetroops]

I had a look at the tech order in this game. I didn't remember getting the Music Artist at all, but I actually got it before CS. Seems I really didn't want any anarchy. After slavery, I did no civic or religion switches until a MoM powered GA started in 50 AD. Oh well, capital wasn't that great anyway... And apparently I immediately traded Music to Mansa for machinery, which was nice I guess.

In my experience grabbing as much land as possible before longbows is key. Oxford can wait. Even with the best capital I'd rather have 5-10 more early cities than an earlier Oxford. Adding elepult on top of HAs is quite nice. HAs can take out smaller cities further out and snipe units in the open while the main elepult stack marches on the core. Siege doesn't necessarily have to slow down mounted warfare.

 

[Pangaea]

Dang. That looks like an incredible game. If my count was right, 14 cities by 1AD (most captured), presumably a whole pack of stolen workers going by all the DOWs, and Libbing Communism by 540AD. That's nuts!

Interesting you went Music before CS, though. Also looks like you went Construction pretty early. Did you get Elepults there?

In the game I've got going, I'm unsure how to proceed, because the age of HAs is over really, too many metal guys around, and with Mansa Oracling Feudalism (nice!) and then peace vassaling 1-city Peter (I was going to kill him later, but got IW++ for peace) and then gifting him Feudalism, it will probably go around pretty quickly. I'm therefore a bit hesitant about investing into elepults now so late, when they may well just run into longbows. It's why having Mansa in the game can be such a poisoned chalice. Would love to grab a good bit more land before longbows, but it looks iffy given the situation. May need to develop some of the land instead, and go for later wars. Not ideal compared to these supergames.

Also, at some point I feel like I need to stop whipping so hard (and I whipped hard early to get out a bunch of HAs), and let the cities grow a bit more. Going for elepults would need a ton more whipping to get out a new army in time to be useful.

 

[elitetroops]

Before that game I had learned a valuable lesson about space games from two Shaka games. The first one a NC game where I just expanded hard early and decided to go space quite late, the second a HoF game with exact same map settings, except of course a much stronger start, no barbs, huts and events (got sports league for an extra golden age) and the usual bunch of helpful AIs. Still the HoF game ended exactly the same date as the NC game. Here's my analysis from the NC thread:

Interesting that my selected HoF-settings turned out to make the game harder. Start was of course awesome, it was a HoF game after all, but packing the map with more AI was a huge mistake. First of all it lowered domination limit, and it makes the AI build more units when they cannot expand anymore. Over all, in the second game I killed 100 more units to capture 10 less cities. I ended up with only 37 cities, compared to 47 in this NC game, which meant about 1500/turn less in the end game. This was in part a result of the tough wars, a worse map layout for warfare, and me not expanding enough early on. Instead I focused on economy and Oracle->CS, which might not have been the best idea.

So while I was very far ahead in tech in the early game (had 625bc maces), 15 turns earlier to Oxford and still a few turns ahead with Apollo built and only 9 techs to go, this could not keep up with the larger empire I got in the NC game. I was done teching one turn later than in the NC game, and by then my chain of 6 golden ages was over, which screwed up my space part build calculations. So once again I failed to launch in one turn. It would have worked this time though, if I could have completed teching while still in a golden age.

Any way, lesson learned. In space games, more cities = faster finish date. It's really that simple.

In the Darius game I picked a cap whose only purpose was to pump out immortals as fast as possible early, then somehow keep my economy afloat while the captured cities get online. Late game potential in the capital was awful. In 1 AD CS would only have netted 23 base commerce and 7 hammers per turn in cap, putting a 10-15 city empire on hold for one turn to get that gain a few turns earlier would probably have been a bad idea. In retrospect I really should have moved the capital to a better spot later on in the game. I did use elepult, although had maces available as well quite soon. 700 AD I'm looking at 31 cities, 6 trebs built but I doubt those have seen much action yet, so basically immortals, HAs, elepult and some maces to that point.

Hard to say about your game without knowing more details. If the age of HAs truly is over, then maybe time to stop and tech up a bit. Still, I'd primarily aim for the next military advantage. Where that opening is would depend.

 

[Pangaea]

Thank you, interesting views and writeups. Did pack the map with AIs when setting it up, but had forgotten that it also lowered the domination limit. Saw it when I started looking for starts, but at that point just wanted to get going, found a start that looked nice and off we went. There is something to say for more trading opportunities though (and selling stuff for gold), if they can be helpful at least, and you don't steam ahead of them too quickly. My thinking was mainly that capitals usually look very nice, and I wanted to be able to capture more of them (and they are closer => lower maintenance). You could well have a point about AIs having more units, though, when they run out of space to expand into. Still not sure what is objectively best, maybe it depends too much on what happens in the actual game. Cities not on hills, AIs being useful trade-wise, the land and nearby resources, etc etc. So much can go wrong, not least if you want to get Oracle. In this game I was lucky that horses popped up in the capital, so went for HAs. They're good early, but against hills and spears they tend to have a high loss ratio.

Since posting back and forth here I'm thinking about starting a new game with normal amount of AIs (and using the non-city razing option). Maybe huts too. Germany starts with a scout so may actually get one or two, though you also run the risk of AIs getting free BW super-early because they swarm the map with scouts.

 

[Noble Zarkon]

• Victory Condition: Domination
• Difficulty: Immortal
• Starting Era: Ancient
• Map Size: Tiny
  
• Speed: Epic
  
• Map Type: Highlands
• Civ: Russia (Catherine)
• Opponents: Any

One of the worse map scripts for fast domination, but the current #1 should be beatable even with these settings. I think it could be a fun and slightly different challenge. For those who just want to tick off the G-minor and not worry about grabbing a #1 slot in the tables it shouldn't be too hard.

Could also make it Civ: Sumeria if you want to make it easy mode.

I went with easy mode

 

[Pangaea]

Real tired of rolling starts, must have gone through 50 and at least 10 test settles to see if gold popped up (then I may have tried it out). Had to move two tiles here (started 1N of lake), but maybe it will be worth it. Still saves a few turns on the initial worker since it's Epic speed. Shame about the BFC mountain, but other than that probably a marginal upgrade. Perhaps it would be better to start with warriors here and go for worker steals since we don't start with one, but eh... it's kind of an all-in thing, and can definitely fail. And then you sit there with no development for 50 turns or whatever. What opening do people prefer?

Had the SIP been riverside I would have just settled there, but intending to go to space, I need the capital to be riverside for a later levee.

Spoiler :

I'd be happy with one gold as it can be hard to work two anyway, especially with only one proper food source. Won't be able to whip much here. I did hope for food when going south, but at least a PH start means a little faster worker despite the two wasted turns.

Went with max AIs again and using Mansa - time will tell if I regret one or both of those. But this time I turned on huts and remembered to tick the "no raze" option. Went with Low sea level too, though there doesn't seem to be much difference at all from medium. 20-30 tiles maybe.

Did test out some maps with normal amount of AIs, but the distance to any of them looked pretty big in WB. Would be great with a higher domination limit, but am not sure it outweighs the downside of fewer capitals and a higher distance to AIs, in case you are able to workersteal, and for maintenance once you start warring. On that note, I did go for regular world map instead of flat. Probably not objectively best, but a personal preference. And it's less of a pain in the balls if you happen to start near a corner.

 

[elitetroops]

Hmm... not sure it's even a marginal upgrade. What worries me the most is the downgrade from 10 or 11 forests to 5. That's a big difference if you go HA rushing. Also less good cottageable tiles. But it's a tricky start when SIP also has it's downsides.

When it comes to worker stealing, there's two kinds of games. Those that I decide to worker steal in advance (usually anything where I plan very early rushes) and those where I don't. If the decision is to worker steal, I'll go for it and roll a new map if it fails. In games where I haven't made a strict decisions to worker steal I might still go for it if it's a marginal start and I don't mind throwing it away when it fails. But if it's a really good start I play it safe.

 

[Pangaea]

That makes sense. That's the benefit with HoF maps. If it goes badly, you just try another one. Don't have MapFinder installed now, though, so getting a new "worthy" one is a little boring.
(It's hard to set up on Linux, and I don't recall what I did last time -- think it was something with registry settings causing an issue)

On forests, I didn't think much about that at the time, but I do now while playing, and you are totally right. I lost a lot of forests by moving, and after a chop I'm already looking at unhealth at size 5 or 6. No chance to use HAs early here as in the other game, but may be able to get Axes against my neighbour, as he is a little close...

Spoiler :

This is an interesting situation, though. I stole a worker from him there, which was risky, but I banked on there not being an archer that would be able to attack. They didn't. But he refuses to peace out. What can cause that, when you don't lose any units to him?

One thing is that he got Writing early from huts (but not BW>Slavery), and we could open borders in turn 22 or so. Or is it because our borders touch?

De Gaulle is actually on the other side of me. This was probably overly risky too. Saw he had a horse pasture, but because it was so early I banked on him not having a chariot out yet, and stole a worker that was roading between his cities. A chariot could have sniped me (4 roaded tiles from him capital, no rivers). It went fine, then we peaced out. 1-2 turns after a chariot exits his capital. But despite being able to build chariots and having AH, he still peaced out. I know de Gaulle is an easier case since he does that quite willingly, but still. It makes me wonder why Peter refuses here. He only has archers (capital is all forests, impossible with a strategic there). Doesn't have BW yet either. So I'm left with the possible explanations of Writing from a hut or that our borders touch, which may make him less likely to peace out after a lost worker. He refuses even though I have teched both AH and BW. Think both add to our power, at least BW does.

It's "only" Immortal, where the AIs tend to peace out pretty quickly. Naturally this is different on Deity, where it would almost be suicide to steal workers this early.

 

[elitetroops]

With Aggressive AI they take peace very quickly as long as you are threatening one of their cities. Without it it can take longer, except De Gaulle is always a wimp. Not sure exactly how it works. Usually it's still fairly quick, but I also had a game where Peter took forever.

 

[Pangaea]

Strange stuff. Played and played but Peter still refused peace. Eventually I swapped into Slavery, still no go. Killed a scout that got close. Still no peace. But the moment I settle the 2nd city, he is all for it.

Can't recall this happening before, taking so long to get peace, at least on Immortal. Maybe it had to do with borders touching. I don't know. Weird.