The Hall of Players

[Dhoomstriker]

As for "Mansa is cheating due to his GNP," note that Culture is included in GNP. So, if, say, an AI is running Free Speech (for +100% Cultural output in all Cities), and that AI has built Monuments, Libraries, or Wonders more than 1000 years ago, that AI's GNP can appear to be quite inflated.

Further, the bonus Flasks that one earns for another player knowing a tech or for researching a tech with bonuses (i.e. a tech with a "white line leading to it" on the F6 screen) contribute to GNP. So, as BornInCanteloup implied, Mansa having a higher-than-normal Science slider can also make his GNP appear inflated relative to simply counting up the Commerce that he earns.

I'm not able to say one way or another whether there has been some code changed introduced by the version of BUG that is used by the new BUFFY that allows an AI to tech faster, but you could make a stronger case if you played a BUFFY Mod game with Lock Modified Assets OFF and then found a way using the World Builder to get hard evidence. If you can't be motivated to do so, pretend that you'd had a game crash or some other reason that would make your HOF submission ineligible, in order to justify the effort to yourself to play the game.

 

[Seraiel]

Thx for that input Dhoomstriker. Mansa couldn't have any TRs because Viccy was in war withhim and he wouldn't give OB to Roosevelt. He also was not running Free Speech, I looked that up because I wondered how he could crush me so badly culturally. What might be the case maybe is, that some of the code from Better-BAT-AI made it into the BUG or BUFFY mod, I cannot explain it otherwise. I always get a $hit feeling when I want to write that Mansa is not normal, but he really isn't, 75GNP in that situations means at least 75% multipliers + building Wealth.

I think I will play out some test-games without locked modified assets because I believe that it's really necessary. Any help would be appreciated, as also an answer towards the question I asked 2 days ago and which is even marked in bold would be. I gave a lot from me with the last reports and wouldn't have needed to do so, I don't know why it's so hard and why only so few help keeping this forum alive. Everbody enjoys but only the fewest feel like they should do something as it seems. I've i. e. not even read 1 report from WastinTime 'til now, I think there was one 1-2 sentence long post from him in all the time. If Mansa is bugged, then this affects us all, if he really is like I assume, then publishing BUFFY .004 would wreck all of our games. Denniz and Noble Zarkon were so kind to invest a lot of work into that mod and we're allowed to play with it currently and our submissions will be accepted, why are you holding back and don't test it? If I see any HoF games played without BUFFY .004 in the update after the next update, I'll be very sad.

 

[Seraiel]

Eternal peace and tech-trading :

Roosevelt just couldn't let it be:



He's building a World Wonder in the capital and he's building it with an amazing speed of between 87 and 90 (he has Iron + Tin and a few Workshops) . I fear that it might be the SoL and that one I'm not willing to miss out aswell. I wonder that I didn't consider this earlier already because he also has the MoM, the AP, Notre Dame and both Temple-enhancers (UoS + SM) , maybe I'm just a too peaceful player or thought that I could profit more from keeping him strong so that he can research techs for me. Anyhow, he seems to have lost his strength, just look at those 43T 'til Comunism while I research the more expensive Biology in 13T. I'm gonna take his capital and also the Silver-city you can see in the upper left corner. I will only take those, I'm not gonna destroy him completely (though I could) because I'm already at 47% of the land and Sushi will do it's thing again, I think I'll definitely will have to gift him some cities later in the round because I'd get over the 68% domination limit then. Good thing is that even with a war he's going to stay friendly towards me. He's at +18 currently, war will cause -3, no Open Borders = -2 so +13 after the war . I'll lose a little when I switch out of Mercantilism, but then I'll simply gift him all of my techs and get another +1 for You shared blah and he'll be +10. Maybe he can research something very small for me that I can need. Here's an overview of the Wonders I'm going to capture:



Seems like sometimes one needs to be forced into good decisions . Now I'm double glad / happy that I built those 37 Cuirrassiers. I'll post an update over the war against him if there's any interest, so write me if you'd like some showing. It's gonna be a very short war with 1-2 Spy revolts and some Cuirr Ownage.

I'm btw. really impressed what my units achieved in this round. I stole 19 Workers and self-built only 3! 8 War Elephants + 8 Catapults conquered Lizzy, who had 12 cities, completely with only 5 Catapult losses! That's 12 cities for 500 , less than the cost of 2 Settlers . Counting the 14 Workers I stole from her, those are another 840 . So I actually got and stole more than my losses costed, I basically gained 12 cities and saved 340 on not needing to build Workers, got left with 3 Catapults that I can use as City-Garrisons and the War Elephants I upgraded into Cuirrs against Mansa and they did a great job . I think this is the best warring I ever had in any of my rounds. Mansa being very fast actually also was an advantage in hindsight so very curious how competetive Frederick in an ideal game will be against the Incans. I think I'm currently at the point where ShannonCT founded Mining Inc. but I'm not far away from Sushi and Viccy is researching perfectly, she has Rifling which I can save when going for Rocketry and will have Steampower before I get Sushi so she's even making the way towards Mining easier for me . Not sure I'll be able to get Railroad from her, as my own research is through the roof now, I have twice as many GNP as the AIs have, but maybe she could research AL for me? *looks nicely and plays piano with his eyelashes*

I'm just so glad that I didn't throw this game away, this could become the best game I ever played with Frederick. If it doesn't get 100 points in EQM then I'd wonder very much, because the date to beat is a 1630 AD game from Ironhead. Great to beat <Mod action: Please keep things civil> him at the same time. Getting a #1 would be incredible, but beating 1265 AD with Incans with a non-Incan-non-Persian leader is really hard. I think this game has the quality for it though, if it's possible, then I'll achieve it with this game. Awesome feeling after so much trouble.

Thx a lot again @ Kaitzilla and Dhoomstriker who motivated me when I needed it the most, you're great guys .

 

[Seraiel]

1364AD victory .

1st place would have been about 30T earlier, but then again that was an Incan game but for me 100 points in EQM and the 2nd ranking game far before the next non-Incan game and beating several Incan games aswell.

+ I believe I overtake the #1 position in Tiny / Marathon / Highscore with almost 700k points ^^ . Built a few Farms in the end and milked the game as good as possible. Almost would have won Domination twice, because I went 'til 67.5% (68% was the limit) and thought I was safe, but then a city revolted towards me first ( ) and after the launch I got 2-3 "unexpected tiles" , like you know those where you i. e. own all tiles around a single tile and the game gives you the single tile in the centre although you have 0 culture on it. Would have been something to get a Domination win with the Spaceship already flying. Went the safe way and gifted away 2 cities to an AI of which I had conquered half of its empire before and then needed to stop. Because of this I owned only 29 cities in the end and also didn't own all World Wonders anymore (gifted way the AW) , but I think I can live with that. Would have been nicer ofc. to have 30 cities in the end and would have been the first time in which I'd have owned really every single World Wonder, but getting a 100 points game which replaces the 6 points game I had before with the Germans is already a big win .

 

[elitetroops]

Nice game!

Btw. for milking score, which victory comes first if you cross domination threshold/win conquest the turn before your spaceship would arrive? Or does it become a coinflip? With a massive space empire it shouldn't be hard to get enough war success on everyone for capitulation while the space ship is flying and then accept capitulation from them all the turn before your ship arrives.

 

[Seraiel]

When you win more than one type of victory on the same turn, a coinflip is made. This is a common situation in competetive Conquest games, because afaik the fastest approach is to get a big empire and then vassalize all remaining opponents on the final turn. I didn't know that the type of victory gets decided by a coinflip and played that way once, I had very much luck that I got a Conquest type of victory. The safter approach is to make sure to not conquer too much and then vassalize more opponents, and with every Vassal's territory only counting 50% towards its master it's then possible to stay below the domination-threshold by only needing to raze the last few cities.

With milking the score I only ment that I i. e. built Farms after launching the Spaceship or that I i. e. also built Health-buildings and not simply pressed Shift+Enter 30 times.

 

[elitetroops]

Got an interesting start with Monty, large/marathon/emperor, aiming for espionage victory. I picked Monty as I haven't played him, and I'll be spamming courthouses anyway, might as well make them more useful. I quickly realized his starting techs suck, but goody huts more than made up for this. Popped The Wheel, AH and Writing by t19!

Spoiler :

(I have no idea why Sury is in the game btw., don't remember picking him as an opponent. I fear he is replacing Mansa as he is last on the tech trade screen of all the AI I know... And of course he is my closest neighbor with his creative capital on a hill )

Capital is weak with only plains cow and floodplains though. No luxuries. With that early writing I felt I had to go for early Alpha as well, which I got 2170BC and stopped there for now. 10 AI on my continent (Mansa is not one of them), 3 more are lurking somewhere else. I already have +2 diplo for open borders with most AI. I happened to be at war with a very distant Peter after some workerstealing, so once Alpha was in, I bribed a few more AI on him with Mysticism for some shared war action.

Not sure how to proceed from here. Surrounding land is quite bad with no real food that would be easy to grab.

Spoiler :

2nd city grabbed horse. Not a very good spot but towards my closest neighbors and I didn't see many much better spots either. Corn/Fish/Gold/Horse in the east is of course awesome, but those peaks are kind of messing it up. I already built some roads in that direction with spare workerturns.

Have a settler coming out soon, what should I do with it? Right now I'm thinking either go for the eastern spot in some way, or put id down 3N of capital and gift to someone for tech stealing. Nobody is willing to trade religious techs right now, but I could steal med/poly + masonry from either Asoka or Justinian and probably still grab the Oracle. If settling the eastern spot, I'm thinking either 1N of horse and work horse/chop monument, or 1N of corn and get monument up somehow. Possibly 1 pop whip.

There's also another plains cow+7FP spot 4W1S of capital which could be good a long time from now, but those FP sites are so painfully slow, especially on marathon.

I'll trade for BW next turn, this might also have an effect on the decision. Might wait until construction with war this time. Or possibly HAs...

 

[Pangaea]

Believe we talked about this in the G-Major 137 thread, but it's kind of GIGANTIC I can't recall how the formulas for production and spy costs went. On normal settings, what was the relation between costs on production to costs for civic switch and city revolt?

Hammers = (SabotageProduction / CityRevolt) * (650 / 6)

On Marathon, is it just to divide by 3 instead of 6?

 

[WastinTime]

On Marathon, is it just to divide by 3 instead of 6?

no, same formula

 

[Pangaea]

Ok. Good to know, although surprising. Thought I needed to alter for game speed.

When calculating the hammers, do we need to take into account the cheaper cost for AIs, particularly at Deity level? IIRC, the cost is only 60% at deity, so a marathon settler would be 180 instead of 300h. But then the math doesn't work out, I think. From what I recall, prior to taking London in that game, Elizabeth had ~1500 sabotage cost, with less than 800 city revolt cost (760 or so). That would be over 200h.

Maybe my timing happened to be really bad after all then, in case she would have got out the settler that turn, and I could have got another free worker.

Water under the bridge now, but it's good to know the formula for the future

 

[WastinTime]

Ok. Good to know, although surprising. Thought I needed to alter for game speed.

When calculating the hammers, do we need to take into account the cheaper cost for AIs, particularly at Deity level? IIRC, the cost is only 60% at deity, so a marathon settler would be 180 instead of 300h. But then the math doesn't work out, I think. From what I recall, prior to taking London in that game, Elizabeth had ~1500 sabotage cost, with less than 800 city revolt cost (760 or so). That would be over 200h.

Maybe my timing happened to be really bad after all then, in case she would have got out the settler that turn, and I could have got another free worker.

Water under the bridge now, but it's good to know the formula for the future

maybe she was building Stonehenge? Wonders do not get the 60% discount.

 

[Pangaea]

maybe she was building Stonehenge? Wonders do not get the 60% discount.

That could be the case, as the Stonehenge went a bit later (Gandhi has both Stonehenge and GW).

I believe the AIs still get a discount on wonders, but it's much smaller, just the era modifier. So it increases the longer the game goes on.

 

[Seraiel]

I don't fully understand what question is asked, but to calculate the amount of an AI has in a built in a city there's an extremely good answer from Doshin in the thread from Tachywaxon. The formula doshin wrote down in that thread is way simpler than the above one.

AIs also have an era specific discount on wonders, this is discussed in the following.

 

[Pangaea]

I don't fully understand what question is asked, but to calculate the amount of an AI has in a built in a city there's an extremely good answer from Doshin in the thread from Tachywaxon. The formula doshin wrote down in that thread is way simpler than the above one.

AIs also have an era specific discount on wonders, this is discussed in the following.

Certainly true, but early in the game you can't use it, or more rarely at least, because it's based on civic switch costs. If the AI has the same civics as you, then there is no cost for changing them, as it can't be done. Hence why I was looking for the formula based on city revolt cost. Very useful to have both

650/6 is roughly 108, so if you don't need the hammers 100% accurate, you can take sabotage cost / revolt cost * 108 to make it a little faster to type in. Also fairly easy to do in your head, due to the close-to round numbers.

 

[elitetroops]

I think I'll have to abandon the Monty game mentioned above. Start is too slow and poor. You can say what you will about hut-luck, but it's no game changer, except maybe in AP games and super fast conquest game. In a game like this I'd much rather take double wet corn+gold than plains cow+FP and Writing from a hut.

 

[Pangaea]

Sorry to hear that elitetroops. You had fantastic hut luck, and that does matter, but you were also unlucky with the surrounding land, and that matters more long term.

 

[elitetroops]

Yeah, huts are a bit deceptive. It might seem awesome to get some techs that would take you 100 turns to research normally, but still, it's not that many beakers. With a better starts, you'd catch up and run away quite fast.

If those three popped techs would have been Mining-BW-IW for 3700BC resourceless Jaguars, then it might have been a lot more fun.

 

[elitetroops]

What's going on with the river connections here?

The corn SE of capital was connected immediately after it was improved, so was the gold W of capital. The second city was also connected immediately when it was founded. I don't have Fishing or The Wheel and capital is not on the same river as the corn, gold and city 2. Is there some special magic happening when 2 rivers are one tile apart, or?

 

[Seraiel]

Do you have Sailing elitetroops ? The rivers aren't conneccted except if you built a Road on the Gold because a city has a road (even without TW ) . If you have Sailing, then the rivers are connected via the Coast.

 

[elitetroops]

No Fishing = No Sailing

When I later founded city 3 on the coast, not by either of the rivers, it was not connected to capital.