The Non-Midas Touch, Deity Variant, 1.21PTW

[Puzzlinon]

<delurk>There's a rep maintained specifically about creditworthiness.
It's all about not completing payment when up-front value was involved.

Cash sums, maps, and tech are "up front" parts of a deal; GPT and resources are "extended" payment.

So if you do

Get: WM, Lux
Give: Tech, 1GPT

as a deal and you trash the deal, then your rep is shot, because you still owe for the World Map. If the other side trashes the deal, his rep is shot, because he received a tech in the initial trade, and owes that Lux to pay it out.

As long as there is money or resources you owe on the deal, if you got cash, or tech, or a map (i.e.anything but GPT or resources) to kick it off, your creditworthiness is broken if you break the deal.

Creditworthiness doesn't (I don't think) get trashed if you break a straight GPT-resource deal. You'll get the other guy ticked off at you, but you'll still have credit with the ROTW. But if only one gold cash, or Music Theory or World Map, is included, then you'll be paying cash or techs only for techs for the rest of time.

Getting in the habit of keeping small cash sums, WM, or the obsoleted wonder techs, out of resource deals, can be a good policy. The AI's stick them in to make you vulnerable, I think.

<relurk>

 

[Nad]

Very interesting information there I thought I understood how trading worked but I've learned something new

It would seem, therefore, from what you say, that in a deal which consists purely of "extended payments" on both sides, the length of the deal is irrelevant with regards to rep. Eg, if you buy wines for 12 gpt, the caption usually says "this deal will last for 20 turns", but if you were to break the deal before 20 turns, you would get an attitude hit from the civ you're dealing with but not a rep hit. My mistake was that I thought the 20 turns superseded the terms of the deal, but clearly the terms of the deal supersed its length.

I think this is a very important nuance of the game, then, because if extends your options for declaring war while you have ongoing deals; so if you have lux deals going, for example, you don't necassarily have to wait until their end to declare war without shooting your rep.

 

[Skyfish]

Am playing right now... sorry for the delay...

 

[Skyfish]

Check around : still a lot of units not upgraded yet,.
I feel the move to Democracy will help us quite a lot, if we get to Rails we might have a slim chance...
We still miss tons of techs to get there though.

Do a round of MM, Thermo was going to riot next turn, have to change taxman in clown. Do a partial rush with the money we got.

We are giving out aro. 130gpt to other civs let's hope some of those deals end on my turn I dread the end of GA.
Actually I got more gpt coming free next turn. All of our deals come from France Egypt or India : we should try to have deals with all Civs to lower risk of war.

For Furs, France can give us Printing Press plus 17gpt, let's do it. Science at max sustainable to democracy. If we wanted to
buy it we would need to dish out aro. 75gpt so it's much cheaper to research.

Press space...Russians want 10g + TM I cave in of course...
Loads of units on auto-move please

760 : Corinth : Granary -> Courthouse. Deal ends, Democracy available in 11 turns. Lacking money for upgrades

770 : Thermo : Bank -> Uni Delphi : Market -> Acqueduct. MM everything in order to never go over 10g at the end of each round. Sometimes I have to give small amounts to AIs, we only make between 3 and 5gpt anyway.

780 : French Spice deal ends we need to pay 13gpt instead of 9. I change Zariqum to settler to grab one omore fishing village.
Found Ephesus on coast by Herakleia.

790: England declares on Russia [dance] Russia signs China into an alliance. Athens Bank -> Musket
Of ocurse the Russians and English use our territory to ge to England, they have a stack of 12 Cossacks heading towards Norwich, hehe...
Our workers finally get to the wines of newly acquired Herakleia and start hooking up.

800 : Russia then join China against Egypt. France joins Russia in the war against Egypt. All this is really helping us..as
long as we dont get caught in the middle Massive Naval wars going on, the AI is producing tons of naval untis as usual.
Pharsalos Bank -> Barracks : this is our border city with England and we need rax there. Knossos Temple -> Market.

Now I finally realize what's going on with the Auto moves : the workers are automated please dont do that before my turn !

810 : Our Golden Age ends, we can not sustain that level of research of course and Democracy is now available in 10 turns.

820 : French are building Universal Suffrage. With Wines online I can get Lux tax down to 0 and Democracy is ready in 7 turns

Russians are getting the upper hand in the glue factory mountains...

830 : we lose our Silk deal with China, they just will not take anything from us except our Wines India joins Russia against England.
MM everything on the interturn to prevent riots. Thermo needed a temple instead of Uni my I had no idea such a big city would not have a Temple yet...
Even though everyone's at war I can not get a deal to trade luxes.

850 : Sparta : Cath -> Library Democracy available in 3 at +12gpt and we have 3 gold in store

Because of the worker automation, I could not bring them in time to the incense that I gained by establishing Ephesus so please do that for me.

Also the Egypotian Iron deal is now over and we should renegotiate : I would get Ivory and another Tech for it but I will leave this to Nad. Actually scratch the Ivory as we'll get Incense soon...
we also have 36gpt coming free next turn so you can also play with that I would get as much as I can with Iron and 40gpt.
We have a settler on an island that can settle next ot fish and Salpeter : Egypt also lacks Salpeter !If only wehad cash to rush a harbour...
Another opportunity ?

http://www.civfanatics.net/uploads4/NMT-850_AD.SAV

Have fun !

 

[Aggie]

Looking good I'm happy to see that we grabbed the wine. Also I see a lot of opportunities. Go for it Nad !

 

[Skyfish]

Quote from Aggie

- I expect to return alive

Aggie I hope you know you are jinxing it when you say that !
:suicide:

 

[Nad]

Amazing.

I don't think I've ever played or seen a game where the AIs have fought each other so much without the intervention of the human player. It's not just gentle skirmishing, it's actual and sustained war for centuries.

And this was supposed to be a more peaceful game I thought 60% archipelago would be the surest way to reduce the fighting Obviously not...

Got it, will try to play 2nite, if not then 2moro.

 

[Aggie]

Nad: profit from it! Conquer a few towns that are grabbed by the Russians or others that are too far away from us to react in 5 turns (the time we need to be able to make peace again).

PS. This was an example. Atm Russia has too many troops running around.

 

[Skyfish]

There's no way we can declare war against anyone right now we'd be dead straight away *however* we need to poach more sites : I did that with Ephesus and the Incense but we can grab another site by Herakleia and take the French horse colony, we could then sell them horses back for a good deal. Problem is the only site that could get a settler quick was realy far away ...might still be worth it to try it Nad

Oh by the way Nad : in all the games I've played at Deity with AIs warring vs each other they always turned vs me at one point or another, they have rails and rifles and we have only 2 muskets
Could get ugly

 

[Nad]

I don't think there's any doubt that at some stage we will have to fight a major war when one of the big boys (or girls) turns on us. We just have to hope that it's not yet! Preferably not until replacable parts.

I've not looked at the save yet but I'd be in favour of poaching rather than capturing. Also, is there any possibility of a slingshot? We are scientific after all, and something like nationalism would be very handy as our free tech if any of the other civs lack it (we can easily find this out simply by seeing if we can sign MPPs with them).

 

[Nad]

Sorry for the delay, was slightly busier than I thought I would be in the last couple of days.

The Non-Midas Touch

This was a really engaging and interesting set of turns. The turns mainly involved micromanagement, movement of workers and galleys, and keeping a hawkeye on diplomacy. Some things went our way, other things didn't. These are notes of the main issues.

Inherited turn, 850AD

I'll start with a couple of pictures

Now I don't particularly like settling aggressively so that my city's native 9 conflict with an opponent city's native 9 tiles. On the other hand, if there is a resource for grabs, anything goes The first pic is the one that Skyfish set up. The 2nd one is a horse steal we can do without the 9-tile conflict on our own doorstep. If that turns out to be France's only source of horses I'm going to be laughing all the way to the bank.

Had a quick look at our cities; most are fine, though a few aren't mico'd properly: Athens doesn't need a taxman; Mycenae's entertainer can be changed to a taxman. And there's too much emphasis on shields: we've got cities like Knossos, that have an aqueduct but are at size 5 and working mountain squares, which slows their growth. IMO, we should let the cities grow first and then maximize shields, espcially as we're commercial and get extra gold at size 7. All cities except those that can't grow are put on max food.

A few build changes: Buto to courthouse; Zariqum to harbour; Athens to courthouse, so it can do a lovely 20spt. Knossos to settler, to steal the horses.

Map survey: good job on the exploring people We now have a vague idea of what the land setout is, although this only reinforces the feeling of feebleness at our small size Still, Babylon was a lot bigger than us and look what happened to Hammurabi We're surviving, which is all that can be expected at the moment.
Why are there 2 French units fortified outside Mycenae? I hope they're not up to owt. Russia is looking like a monster, and will surely be our main opponent in the space race if we manage to get into a winning position.
Incense hook-up is a priority, but unfortunately we don't have any workers in the immediate vicinity, so I'll have to divert a few to get this done.

Egypt, Russia and China are all Communist...long may that continue! The others are democracies, but for how long?

Okay, I had a look at the foreign advisor screen....WTH!! Can someone entangle who is at war with whom?!

It seems that India is the only civ apart from us not at war, although we can't be sure of all the conflicts as we don't have a full set of embassies. Egypt and Russia are being dogpiled but are still at war with each other!

Right, with regard to deals, my plan is this: I want to try to get into the industrial age next turn to pick up our free tech. If I wait a turn for the 36gpt deal to end, I can use the gpt to buy Physics, and then broker iron and everything else we've got to Egypt to get Theory of Gravity and Magnetism. Good plan? Read on....

IT: Sweet baby....even though I turned off animations, it takes a fair while for all these units to move. Okay team, I propose we all get on our knees and pray to whoever's listening that the Russians don't declare war on us. I doubt we'd last more than 3 turns if they did.

Thermo (what happened to the -"pylae"?): university --------> temple
Pharsalos: barracks ---------> courthouse
Lisht: courthouse ---------> harbour
Izibia: harbour ------------> market

 

[Nad]

Turn 1, 860AD: aggressively settle Thessalonica, which starts on a warrior

We have a couple of fortified and automated workers. As Skyfish said, no thanks...please don't do this.

Diplomacy: oh beggar The Egyptians have managed to get iron elsewhere - that 1 turn delay has proved very costly. They don't have saltpeter, so I may just be able to swing a deal using our only source....I start by buying Physics from Russia for WM, 17g and 56gpt (and that's at last ); [I'm buying from Russia to give them a disincentive to betray us]; but unfortunately, our only sources of saltepeter, furs and all our income is not enough to get both remaining essential techs from Egypt. I decide to leave both techs for now...with so much warring going on, a resource disconnection could occur at any moment, presenting us with an opportunity.

BTW, Russia has over 15000g!!!

England gets a gift of 29g.

IT: hahaha!!! France and Russia sign a MPP; France and Russia ally against England...

Delphi: aqueduct ----------> granary
Knossos: settler -----------> granary
Russia is building Suffrage.

Turn 2, 870AD: lots of moving workers A gift of 22g to England makes them cautious.

IT: Shruppak captured by France. England could be in trouble.

Democracy is researched. I'm not entirely sure why we went for this, especially at max? I guess it was for rails, but is the cost of a revolution compensated for by faster native workers, of which we have 8? I'm not sure....anyway, I'm certainly not revolting now as we have a huge gpt commitment and a long anarchy will really hurt. If we do wish to revolt we still have the option. Research set to Theory of Gravity at max sustainable.

Athens: courthouse ---------> musket (3 turn muskets are really nice)

Turn 3, 880AD: used our 22 surplus gold to buy a tech; unfortunately, it was only Free Artistry

IT: blood sports outside Corinth

Sparta: library ---------> university
Samarra: library -----------> walls

Turn 4, 890AD: use extra gold to rush warrior in Thessalonica

IT: lots of killing; England and Russia sign peace...won't last long thanks to the MPP

Thessalonica: warrior -------> worker

Turn 5, 900AD: Incense is hooked.

IT: Russians leave our lands; the MPP has not yet activated as the fighting between England and France is taking place on neutral (ie, our) land.

Athens: musket --------> musket
Mycenae: library ---------> harbour

Turn 6, 910AD: found Rhodes, dispersing the French horse colony (it wasn't their only source); set to build library
Upgrade an archer to longbow

IT: Russia is at war with England again; the peace lasted for all of 2 turns. Back come the 100s of Cossacks (exaggeration, but it feels like 100s).

Thermo: temple ---------courthouse

Turn 7, 920AD: The French capture Argos. England is in deep poo, they don't have salpeter so they can't replace their cavalry, and their rifles are too slow to deal with cossacks and cavalry. I count 38 Cossacks (including an army) and 26 French cavalry heading towards England, and there are many more coming each turn...England is going to die and we are in prime position to profit I'm going to start peeling off settlers in case of razes and also get a few units together in case we want to join the feast.

Delphi: granary --------> bank

Turn 8, 930AD: Izibia changed to settler

IT: French capture Norwich; the Russian military is just too scary, I cannot express how thankful I am that we are not on the receiving end.

Athens: musket --------> musket

Turn 9, 940AD: Rush worker in Thessalonica

IT: Can you say glue factory?

Thessalonica: worker -------> harbour

way-hey!! We got our city back!

Set to build library; even if the French do capture rather than raze English cities, we may be able to flip them.

Turn 10, 950AD: start roading saltpeter island source.

Renegotiate furs to France deal...we get Theory of Gravity (discounted due to 8 turns of research left) amd 77g. Just 1 tech left to go til the indiustrial age.

Use gold to found embassy with China. Gift 7g to England.

Notes for next player:

We have no deals with England so our options are open: either we join the party when they're completely gassed and try to pinch some cities (in which case, start training medieval infantry from Athens at 2 turns each), or we let the others do the dirty work, look for poaching, and then buy a load of tech from England just before they die using gpt which we'll get back as soon as they're destroyed - if we do this, it must be gpt only, no resources!

Be sure to peel workers or settlers from Athens and Sparta once their food boxes are filled - we need many more workers and settlers are always useful.

The research has been set to Magnetism - keep it at max sustainable, and see if we can buy it at a discount ASAP. Once we're in the industrial ages, forget nationalism - it's not going to help much now...ideally we'll get Steam Power as our free tech and discover lots of coal which we can sell for a killing. Industrialization will then be the priority, and we may still have half a chance at Theory of Evolution depending on how the AIs go....England has joined the Communist crew. Russia is filthy rich but in Communism (ha!) so they can't cashrush anything. the longer everyone else stays in Communism, the better our chances.

Good luck and enjoy!

Roster:

Nad...just played
Krys...UP NOW
Aggie....ON DECK but on vac...may be skipped
Stuck (welcome back!).....ON ALERT
Meli
Skyfish

Save

 

[Aggie]

@Nad: great turn! Please don't skip me. Looking at the pace of others, I don't think you could mind me playing monday or tuesday at the latest!

 

[Nad]

sure, no worries Aggie; I wasn't entirely sure when you would be back, but Monday/Tuesday is fine.

Krys...UP NOW
Aggie....ON DECK

 

[Nad]

Where are you, Krys?

 

[Aggie]

I can grab this when Krys doesn't show up (Monday)

 

[kryszcztov]

Yup yup, I'm here ! Didn't feel the need to play quickly, with Aggie coming back on Monday (was it nice ? where did you go ?). I should play today. I think I won't quite recognize the game, it has changed a lot since my last turns.

 

[kryszcztov]

inherited turn : OK
GOLD : 10 (+9)

1- 960ad : Samarra : walls > courthouse.
Izibia : settler > granary. Where is this settler for ? Maybe for an opportunity.
Gift Joan with 9 gold.
GOLD : 10 (+5)

2- 970ad : Pharsalos : courthouse > university.
Buto : courthouse > granary.
Athens : musketman > musketman.
Gift Joan with 5 gold.
GOLD : 10 (+14) (I disbanded some warriors we don't need)

IT : Joan ends the spices deal.

3- 980ad : Sparta : university > musketman.
Lisht : harbor > marketplace.
Thermo riots.
I renew the spices deal with Joan (cheapest) for WM + 27 gold + 14 gpt.
GOLD : 10 (+17)

4- 990ad : Gift Cath with 17 gold.
GOLD : 10 (+17)

IT : India and Russia ally against Egypt.

5- 1000ad : Thermo : courthouse > musketman. Now size 12, with 1 clown, but has 15 spt.
Athens : musketman > musketman.
Gift Cath with 17 gold (now cautious).
GOLD : 10 (+17)

IT : Cleo asks us to leave her waters.

6- 1010ad : Harbor rushed in Zariqum.
GOLD : 3 (+17)

IT : Mao asks us TM + 3 gold (now polite). No problem, didn't know what to do with that money.

7- 1020ad : Zariqum : harbor > granary.
Ephesus : library > harbor.
Thessalonica riots.
Bank rushed in Corinth.
GOLD : 9 (+22)

8- 1030ad : Corinth : bank > university.
Pharsalos : university > cannon.
Argos : library > granary.
Athens : musketman > cannon.
Sparta : musketman > musketman.
Gift Cath with 21 gold.
GOLD : 10 (+22)

9- 1040ad : Thermo : musketman > musketman.
Gift Cath with 22 gold. There is an opportunity to get Magnetism (due in 4 turns), but we'll need our money for an industrial tech.
GOLD : 10 (+27)

IT : China and Russia ally against England.

10- 1050ad : Herakleia : library > courthouse.
Athens : cannon > cannon.
Science 40% (tech in 2 turns instead of 3).
Cannon rushed in Pharsalos.
GOLD : 9 (+1).

I took my responsabilities : I disbanded all warriors (except 1 overseas), archers, longbowmen, horsemen, mace, because they were too expensive. We couldn't have upgraded them, all the more with the need to keep up in tech. Losing these units won't weaken us much : if Russia wants to declare war on us, it won't make any difference.
No opportunity to find a settling spot in the English territory, Russians taking many cities without razing (strong culture).
I suggest we builded some troops (cannons, musketmen, cavalries when we get them ? (will we ?)), but not too much, because of the money !!! Just enough to take some cities, but we should now consider taking only some semi-corrupted cities (that will help us), we won't win by domination nor conquest.

the save : 1050ad

 

[Nad]

Krys, I'm not sure we should have disbanded our entire offensive military...even the warriors I would have kept....a lot of our border cities have cultural conflict and each unit there helps suppress any flip possibility. Also, there is the sheer strength in numbers. If anyone sneak attacks us, those warriors and archers would have been useful in soaking up attacks. And as for disbanding the medieval infantry, I'm afraid I have to call that definite We've invested a huge amount in those MDI! Some of them have been upgraded from warriors, they are our best offensive unit, and we could have used them to pick off cities if we wanted to feast on England. I know we need commerce, but we also want to win the game - sure, our chances would have been slim if the Russians had declared, but a slim chance is better than no chance, and right now, it seems you've put our eggs in the no-chance basket.

What's done is done, so we'll just have to play on as best we can. Aggie is up, and rebuilding some military, including offensive military, is now an important priority.

 

[kryszcztov]

OK, now for an explanation !

As I said, I took my responsabilities of playing in this team.
Cultural war : The cities in the south (former Babylonian territory) only saw 1 unit killed, so it won't make a great difference, and what you don't know is that killing those units helped libraries to be built, so that these cities will start to be cultural cities sooner (no cash in this game = almost no rushing). With dozens of cossacks running around, it won't make ANY difference at all, I really mean it. The city in the south-east with many units inside wasn't under cultural pressure, because there is a French city only 2 tiles away but it lacks culture, and farther away, there are English cities that are being captured by the Russians, so no culture either. Disbanding all these units now allow us to do more gpt (good for rushing in the long term) and to buy an important industrial tech in a few turns.

I know we've spent a lot in building mace, but we almost didn't use them (except 2 cities ?), so they were quite useless. And I don't think we should have kept them for upgrading to guerillas. Gifting money to Russia is good for being at peace (Cathy turned polite the last time I gave her money). And there was no chance to take some English cities : Russians have cossacks, that are far superior in quality and quantity to our military, so we would have just followed them (nice, we could have had war reporters on the front !). The less we declare war, the less we will be attacked in the long term, and that's what we want now, am I right ?

I also agree on rebuilding our military ; I started to do so, but I also said we shouldn't build too many units, unless we want to enter a long and worldwide war, I'm not sure that's what we want. So musketmen and cannons are currently being built. What use of them we'll do will ask for a wise judgement, but we have to think and act quickly now. There is no point in thinking of attacking this or that civ, and then finding out that our military is obsolete when we wanted to use it because we have waited too much. In the meantime, we should be careful in our trading sessions. Many civs are in communism, so when we get the tech slingshot, we should do all we can do to trade techs, trade, trade, trade ! The more we trade, the best we'll do.