Part three of the Middle Ages is now complete, as is the game itself...
[C3C] The Nine Conquests
- Thread starter Lanzelot
- Start date
Nicely done coming back in the Middle Ages! I thought you might be out of luck after that second war with the Magyars. I probably would have signed Poland or Germany up to help even with the huge expense, simply to have some of the AI taking out their troops on each other. But it worked out! Those conquest victory points really add up... it looks like the other AIs were fighting a lot but not conquering very many cities.
Age of Discovery was always kind of fun, ferrying the sugar and tobacco and so forth back to the Old World. Never tried it on an upper-level difficulty though! I suppose if you can keep peace it might not be too bad, but it could get interesting trying to ferry treasure back and forth if a Deity-level AI or two gains naval superiority.
Age of Discovery was always kind of fun, ferrying the sugar and tobacco and so forth back to the Old World. Never tried it on an upper-level difficulty though! I suppose if you can keep peace it might not be too bad, but it could get interesting trying to ferry treasure back and forth if a Deity-level AI or two gains naval superiority.
need my speed
Rex Omnium Imperarium
That was a surprisingly quick victory. Do you feel that this scenario would be more fun if it required a lot more victory points? It feels like barely anything happened - you accidentally got into a dangerous war, you survived, you're making your comeback, conquering nicely - and then it ends. Or do you, as the one who played through it, feel differently? Nice job, at any rate!
I'd imagine the pace of VP scoring depends on difficulty level, on a lower level there wouldn't be nearly as many AI units to kill. When I did this one on Monarch it took me a lot longer to score that much and I needed to take one of the relics to Jerusalem to finish the job.
Well, I knew that the Sipahi in the hands of a human player is a deadly weapon, and that once I had a decent number of them, I would be able to do some damage. I was a bit unlucky that I got into two wars too early: in the first war it was still a long way to Sipahis, and in the second war I had just started producing/upgrading them and had only 4, of which I lost a few due to bad RNG luck. (Extremely bad RNG luck was also a major factor in the first war.)
But I was lucky, that I never got into a hot war with one of the superpowers of the game, Byzantium and the Abbasids. These two were fighting it out for most of the game, and I had no worries on the southern border. Also in the end, once I finally had Sipahis, I had very good luck with MGLs. Sipahi Armies are unstoppable and fast and allow taking towns quickly from the "avarage" AIs I was fighting. So the trick here is to avoid wars with the (nearby) superpowers and take towns from the average AIs (Rus, Bulgar, Magyars, France) or from a far away superpower (Germany). And Germany was also quite a superpower in this game: my scouting Horseman, who never was able to return back home, saw their big stacks of Knights on the French and Burgundian borders, and they had hundreds and sometimes even thouthands of surplus cash throughout the game.
AoD is indeed a very queer scenario, and I am very curious, how the AI will handle that. Could either be an easy one, or a quick loss due to conquest in Europe or if the AI figures out what to do with those treasure units... But before we get to that, there is another even stranger scenario: Mesoamerica. I've prepared a little writeup of all the rule changes and required strategies for that, which I'll post as a teaser shortly...
Yes, that describes it very fittingly. The end came a bit surprisingly to me as well, kind of like an anticlimax. Never thought I could rack up these VPs so quickly. I think, the problem is like choxorn says, that the VP system becomes kind of "unbalanced" on the higher difficulty levels:
The "problem" seems to be twofold:
- On Deity, the AIs settle quickly and grow fast. So there are lots of big towns or even cities to capture. And 100 VPs for one pop point becomes overpowered then: for example the Rus had many size 10 and 11 cities, which give you over a 1000 points a piece.
- But when an AI fights an AI, they somehow don't seem to employ those monster stacks which are capable of actually taking a city, they attack mince-meat a few units at a time, where ever they happen to have a few?! (Perhaps they get into war early, before they have accumulated these SoDs?!) And as on Deity cities are heavily defended, these small scale attacks never actually take a city, and when the next small-scale attack happens, the defender had by then been able to heal and refill. - Rinse and repeat...
So the AIs only get these small VP amounts from killed units (half the unit's shield cost - the defenders are usually 20-30s, the attackers at most 60-70s, so that's between 10-35 VPs per unit), but never the really big amounts for a captured city, which can be up to 1200 points!
The human player on the other hand knows to concentrate his firepower on one single spot and take it. Heal and bring up reinforcements - and then take the next city. That way I have been able to take 2-3 of the Rus towns&cities every turn at the end of the game. That's 2000-3000 VPs every turn, not counting the killed units... You'd have to kill hundreds of units every turn to get to the same VP rate...
The very good road-network, that the Deity AI is able to set up, also helped me a lot here, to bring the newly produced Sipahis from the core right into action in only 1-2 turns...
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tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
Are you saying that Comm, Ind and Exp buildings get trait-based discounts in this Scenario?!?
Because they don't in the base game, and I was under the (mistaken?) impression that was hardcoded in the .exe. But if there's some way of modding that in the .biq I'd be very happy...
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It's not really all that important to have a Sacrificial Altar in your capital ASAP, just by the time you want to be sacrificing workers- when I did it I didn't bother sacrificing them at all until I had enough to get to 2,000 culture in my capital, because until I had that they were more useful building improvements.
I think it is the "Other Characteristics" in the Editor. If you check a trait for a wonder, it means "GA trigger", and if you check it for an improvement, it means "half price". (Doesn't seem to have any effect for the small wonders, though?!)
For example, the Marketplace in Mesoamerica has the "Commercial" flag set, which it doesn't in the base game. (Also note the prerequisite "Tambo", the "1" in "Production", which means +25% shield output, the +1 culture per turn and the increased "Cost" of 20...)
I want to get it asap mainly for the extra culture: it's only 20s for a religious civ, and getting some early extra culture in my capital, before the AI does, cannot hurt!
I had some time to start the game yesterday, and finished the writeup! I now experimented with "thumbnails" instead of putting the images into spoilers. Please let me know how that affects page load time. I will then later change all the other stories as well, to either spoilers or thumbnails.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
But Marketplaces do have the Commercial flag in the base-game: that's how Smiths makes Markets maintenance-free (along with the other "Commercial"-flagged generic buildings, e.g. Harbours, Banks, etc.) — but Commercial Civs don't get their shield-costs halved for any of those buildings.
(And Factory shield-costs aren't halved for Industrious Civs, either!
)
Hmm, then I'm at my wit's end... We need to ask the expert modders... But perhaps in the C&C forum.
Edit: one way to test this, may be by unticking the religious box for the Temple and then checking, whether it now has the full 60s for a religious civ?!
Edit: one way to test this, may be by unticking the religious box for the Temple and then checking, whether it now has the full 60s for a religious civ?!
The civilopedia isn't even correctly describing how Blood Cult works- in the editor you see the other two big drawbacks of Blood Cult, that units cost 2gpt instead of 1 (if you somehow have more than 8 units per city) and it has low-level WW, and it also is wrong about what spy mission you're immune to (the civilopedia says you're immune to technology theft, the editor says you're immune to propaganda, but I don't think it actually matters much). You also see the one major benefit: city improvements don't cost any maintenance in Blood Cult.
All that said, yeah, I don't see how it's an improvement over Monarchy, one of many government types in the scenarios you'd never switch into (for that matter, the base game also has governments you'd probably never use). When I did this one you can see me research the pre-req for Blood Cult fairly early in the 2nd age, and then every time I research a tech for the rest of the game my science advisor suggests Blood Cult, which I always ignore and I go on to research every other tech in the scenario first before being part-way done with Blood Cult when I win.
Looking at the scenario in the editor, it looks like the Aztecs/Inca/Maya all start with an established size 3 capital + a settler/worker/warrior, while the Moche/Olmecs/Toltecs get no city to start and just the settler/warrior/worker, leaving them well behind the three human-playable civs to start off.
tjs282
Stone \ Cold / Fish
While I wouldn't claim to be an expert modder on the level of e.g. @Civinator or @Vuldacon, AFAIKnew, only the Civ-traits Rel, Sci, Mil, Sea and Agri were/are hardcoded to give shield-discounts on buildings — so in your suggested test, yes, unticking "Religious" for the Temple would make it cost the full 60 shields for Religious Civs.
But that's why I was surprised by your contentions (assumptions?) in the strategy-post that the Ind-, Comm-, and Exp-flagged buildings also got discounts in this Scenario — because if true, that would strongly imply that there was a "Trait gives shield-discount? Yes/No" switch buried somewhere in the .biq, that I've been overlooking for years.
Toxicman007
Custom User Title
I love the Mesoamerica conquest, probably the one I have played the most. I look forward to seeing the Deity strategies, although to be honest I am a bit disappointed that you are going with the Aztecs and not my beloved Maya 
Hmm, it's hard to find out, because: none of the 6 civs in Mesoamerica are actually commercial... Ah, wait, I found a way to test this: I started a game as the Incas, who are expansionist and agricultural. So per my theory, they should get a discount on the Courthouse:
But in fact they pay the full 180 shields... (Only when playing as the Aztecs (religious), I pay 90s.)
So looks like you are correct, it must be hardcoded. I'll correct my strategy discussion above.
The Mayas were too boxed in for my taste, at least for a Deity game. Not much space, no nearby luxuries (second ring at best, so could easily get lost to the Olmecs or Toltecs on Deity), not much food. The Aztecs just have the best start land: food and a lux resource for the capital, more food and two luxes in first ring distance, and a fourth lux in second ring distance. For a Deity game, I didn't want to take any chances... And I think it payed of: so far I was able to keep the AI's pace, tech-wise as well as in terms of expansion&population. Only my military is weak compared to everybody. But I'll be working on that soon...
Nice peaceful start! I am glad you didn't wind up in a war early yet again! Even going for building a Wonder on Diety... that's a bold strategy, let's see if it pays off.
I wonder if the Inca are going to start capturing and sacrificing slaves with their war with the Moche, and if so if that will noticeably boost their culture? It's a bit surprising the Moche didn't sacrifice their Incan slaves.
If I put on my Aztec hat, I can see the "culture from ripping the heart out of your captured enemies" aspect. It's currying favor with the gods! Putting fear in the still-beating hearts of your still-living enemies! Of course if I'm just wearing my modern average human hat, such customs seem rather un-cultured... but if I grew up in Tenochtitlan in the mid 1400s, I might think such customs were appropriate. Just as if I grew up in Europe in the 1720s, I might consider it perfectly normal to go watch the local public execution on a Saturday afternoon.
On the note of in-action screenshots, the only program I've found that works well for that is ImageShack QuickShot. It's been deprecated for years and can only be found on third-party sites, but it works whereas the good old print screen doesn't for some reason. There are probably other options that work, too, but I don't know what they are... so whenever I post an "in the action" screenshot, that's what I used to capture it.
I wonder if the Inca are going to start capturing and sacrificing slaves with their war with the Moche, and if so if that will noticeably boost their culture? It's a bit surprising the Moche didn't sacrifice their Incan slaves.
If I put on my Aztec hat, I can see the "culture from ripping the heart out of your captured enemies" aspect. It's currying favor with the gods! Putting fear in the still-beating hearts of your still-living enemies! Of course if I'm just wearing my modern average human hat, such customs seem rather un-cultured... but if I grew up in Tenochtitlan in the mid 1400s, I might think such customs were appropriate. Just as if I grew up in Europe in the 1720s, I might consider it perfectly normal to go watch the local public execution on a Saturday afternoon.
On the note of in-action screenshots, the only program I've found that works well for that is ImageShack QuickShot. It's been deprecated for years and can only be found on third-party sites, but it works whereas the good old print screen doesn't for some reason. There are probably other options that work, too, but I don't know what they are... so whenever I post an "in the action" screenshot, that's what I used to capture it.
After playing some more today, I even think that this game can be won completely peacefully! (However, it's going take quite a bit longer, as I wouldn't be able to kick off the GA. But I think I could build a third wonder, 4 more cultural buildings and a small wonder, and also buy a couple more slaves via F4, whenever one is on offer, and that way reach 2K before turn 175?!)
Hmm, no, I just loaded an old save, established an embassy and noticed that they had already built stuff that Tenochtitlan didn't have: a Codex and a Ball Court. So they were doing 10cpt at a time, when Chichén Itza and Tenochtitlan were still doing 6cpt, and therefore gained their lead the "normal" way, I only didn't check F8 often enough to notice...
That may even be. As I just wrote in part 3, the Mayas (Chichén Itza) had always been a handful of points ahead of Tenochtitlan, and then at one point, when I built the Temple of the Moon and must therefore have overtaken the Mayas, I noticed in F8, that Cuzco had jumped ahead of both Tenochtitlan and Chichén Itza, by a bit more than 20 points. The only explanation I have for that, is that they sacrificed a slave in the capital?!
Hmm, no, I just loaded an old save, established an embassy and noticed that they had already built stuff that Tenochtitlan didn't have: a Codex and a Ball Court. So they were doing 10cpt at a time, when Chichén Itza and Tenochtitlan were still doing 6cpt, and therefore gained their lead the "normal" way, I only didn't check F8 often enough to notice...
Managed to write two more updates today, part 4 & 5, Mesoamerica is finished as well!
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