Von Münchhausen IV

[Optional]

Interfaith Dialogue does not work, but yes, it's a founder belief, it only benefits the founder, in this case Alexander. Hopefully the mechanic will get fixed.

Pacal started on desert, so he's the one to watch if we have any Petra plans. It would surprise me if we would get that, the AI normally gets that quite early, but I find the AI rather slow in this game, so you never know.
There's indeed an advantage to beliefs that don't cost faith to receive the benefit, although if we're faith-buying great merchants we would even more be following a diplo strategy than a cultural strategy?!
I'm looking forward to seeing what plans avl8 is making.

 

[Deau]

I'll have to review my old literature about IFD for a lack of time/energy to test it myself before we reach T150 ish or however early we reach industrial.

However, if I recall an old discussion about it (mid gnk whenever I came back to the game), the science yield is to that of the missionary owner and not the actual founder. It also yields 10 science per other-religion follower in the targeted city (hence bombing self holy city with another religion). It does not yield by the amount of converted citizens (so if you bomb a holy city with 15 follower and convert 0, you would get 150 science regardless and 150 science the next turn bombing again whereas if you converted, say, 3 citizens, you'd get 150 followed by 120).


Still, put that thought on hold, I'll see if I can find the old data source about it. It does however "work". It just does not work as the tooltip says it does.

It can be an extremely potent way to convert abundant faith yield like DF to a T90 education with mass 140 faith missionaries attritionned to 250 strength bombing another holy city for 0 net conversions' neat beaker yield.

 

[avl8]

I couldnt look through the save today, probably will play my set during the weekend.
Any suggestions are welcome!

Especially on barbarian dealing, tech path, scouting and gold/improvements management.
Should we get 500gold for a settler btw?

 

[Optional]

Still, put that thought on hold, I'll see if I can find the old data source about it. It does however "work". It just does not work as the tooltip says it does.

That would be interesting. I've tested it about a month ago and noticed no effect. Browd's article, that I looked up before saying here that the belief doesn't work, has the name of this belief printed in red, while all other beliefs are printed in black. I took that as confirmation of its broken character.

 

[Deau]

That would be interesting. I've tested it about a month ago and noticed no effect. Browd's article, that I looked up before saying here that the belief doesn't work, has the name of this belief printed in red, while all other beliefs are printed in black. I took that as confirmation of its broken character.

Could you provide a link to Browd's thread? It may be broken as of BnW. If that's the case, I am unaware. It is an extremely situational belief (that can be extremely powerful in minmaxing turn to victory) so if his post is old, I would suspect it was simply a case of taking the tooltip too literally since it absolutely does not work the way it is worded out.

 

[Deau]

Should we get 500gold for a settler btw?

Definitely not. We have plenty of high production tiles in cap as well as quite a few turns before our cap food yield becomes interesting enough to "want to save" those settlers turns (aka until consulates kicks in) so I would rather spend that gold elsewhere.

Had we had better food tiles I would've said totally...

 

[Deau]

Ok well I picked up the thread which we discussed IFD. Sadly, it was a thread that turned into flaming hatred for "trolling" whereas the OP, even though he was really not delicate enough in his approach, was rising up extremely valid points about piety. One of the few post-vanilla threads I've learned the most from although it required acute reading skills, very high tolerance to hatred and some decent math background


http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=496495&highlight=Interfaith&page=5

If you look at my reply post#85 and #94. I got myself a forum warning over defending the fact that this was not a troll post, regardless that the delivery looked like it.

Anyway long story short, I suspect that even though it's a founder belief, it does not work as intended and thus you can spam your cap with missionary purchased in cities of other religion than your own to gain science. However, for CV, settling GP is typically my favored approach because post industrial faith yield is what can make or break the entire game.

 

[NotSure]

There's indeed an advantage to beliefs that don't cost faith to receive the benefit, although if we're faith-buying great merchants we would even more be following a diplo strategy than a cultural strategy?!

My fault... I said GM's, but I meant Great Musicians. Maybe those should be GAM's (Great Artist Musicians) or GWM's (Great Works Musicians)? Anyway, I should have been more clear.

I couldnt look through the save today, probably will play my set during the weekend.
Any suggestions are welcome!

Especially on barbarian dealing, tech path, scouting and gold/improvements management.
Should we get 500gold for a settler btw?

I would be cautious clearing that camp with two weak melee units. If I played on, I would've backed those two units out of bombard range of that hand axe (towards the CS SW of us). That would force the axe-tossers to chase into CS lands or head off toward one of our cities. Our starting location allows us to build a little without having to spam units. It wouldn't be devastating to loose a unit but it isn't necessary either.

I can't think of anything I'd want to spend gold on right now (maybe a building in the capital eventually?). Pacal seems to be pretty isolated, so I don't think we could bribe any war decs on him. I bribe war decs often on Immortal and Deity. They might not be necessary, but I've always felt like they helped my game. If I did it here, I'd probably do it with Cathy (vs Wu).

We pledged to protect a CS near Alex. I don't know if that will cause diplo problems with him. I was tempted to revoke protection there just so he doesn't get nasty. He's not very deceptive (from what I remember) so we might be OK. Anyhow.. I'm in agreement with opening borders to him to get some Buddhism.

I'll quote Deau's suggestion for religion.

Pick tithe or +100g lump from cities conversion as founder
Pick Divine Inspiration as first follower
Pick Religious Community or, if taken, swords into plowshare as second follower
Pick Messiah as enhancer. If messiah is taken when we get our 2nd prophet, don't even enhance, only settle the prophet on a non river-side tile in second or third city.

I like all of this. I'd probably go with Swords to Plowshares with our map/civ, but either is good. I still think Reliquary might be better than not enhancing at all, but that decision would come later.

I think we're good continuing toward Commerce. Even if we don't get Petra we're still teching in the right direction.

 

[Optional]

Could you provide a link to Browd's thread? It may be broken as of BnW.

Duh, my mistake. I had used the search function to look for info about Interfaith Dialogue, that's why it showed up red in the article. If it works in some way quite different from what the tooltip describes than I'm just an innocent player fooled by unhelpful in-game info. I've never come across any clarification in the forums about Interfaith Dialogue.
I do remember that thread about Piety. This is how the Civ 5 forums can be, terrible. You won't see me in those sections a lot. And it looks like the info about Interfaith Dialogue has been deleted.

My fault... I said GM's, but I meant Great Musicians. Maybe those should be GAM's (Great Artist Musicians) or GWM's (Great Works Musicians)? Anyway, I should have been more clear.

I don't have a good knack of figuring out acronyms, but what fooled me in this case also is the fact we were talking about going Commerce and hadn't mentioned Aesthetics yet.
The first tree we will finish looks to be Tradition, which gives the option of faith-buying great engineers, which would be great for claiming a few wonders. I'm guessing it will be a while before we'll finish other SP trees.

Regarding those barbarians, I will often get my units out of the way of a newly spawned barb, as a barb that doesn't protect a barb camp always wanders off. That is what I want, as I want to save my units for attacks on the barb camp itself. If you start to deal with everything that spawns from it'll take a very long time before you finally get around to the barb camp itself.

 

[avl8]

Thanks for ideas, guys!
I hope your getting well, Optional & Deau, drowning incident and a troublesome back aren't a good things to behave... I hope you get well soon, sorry I haven't wrote this earlier Ive also apologize for my bad english, its not my native language so playing this SG is a really nice way to improve it.

Ive seen the save, read your comments and heres my plan.

Barbarians. I like the idea to lure wandering axemen into CS land and get some profit out of it. So Im gonna run with both guys out of his Line of sight and see where hes going to leave. Then my goal will be clearing the camp and finishing the axeman.
Id scout our northern frontier cause I sense we already have a barb camp over there.

Scouting. I go strictly south with our scout so we uncover some fog, hopefully we'll get a CS nearby. The goal is to find as many CS with him as possible. We still have huge amount of fog covering lots of CS and we stull got only one scout to find em all...

Build order. Im gonna finish the wonder as soon as possible. Capital soon will get a forest, so Im gonna pre-chop it so we will get a boost once we have it in borders. Im failed to see another spot worth of improving at the moment near capital. MB a western hill, but Im not sure its worth it. This hill wont speed up Oracle and if we somehow fail to build Oracle we're in trouble. So chopping is good. Again, the faster we get Oracle-NC- the better.
ill finish Library in San Paolo with the same intention. Probably stop growth for some turns working a hill when it pops a 4th citizen. Then id start a caravan or cargo there if we already have a granary- otherwise itll be a granary next.
Id get us another copper near San Paolo and sell it. Oracle-NC means no settlers during next 15-20 turns so we wont need extra happiness anytime soon. Then goes iron - or vice versa if you suggest it.

Gold. We can boost our capital with some granary-watermill. And we can afford it. Id prefer getting watermill in Rio once we collect that 400 gold. What do you think?

Technologies. I think we are good to go to Currency though I don't know if Petra so good we gotta get it instead of Settler once NC goes out.

Feel free to improve my plan, Im gonna play my set tomorrow.

 

[Methos]

lurker's comment: I'm not sure if this is what you want, but here's a search of all threads started by Browd with 'interfaith' in them.

 

[avl8]

Ok, here is my 2nd set.

turn 70.
Warrior and spearman looked at each other and... run out south!
Worker went on the copper hill.
After some calculations Rio citizen went from silk plantation to a new farm. 11 turns till lvl 7, we are 328 gold + 19gpt, means watermill in 4 turns. +1 food > 3 gold in this situation. New citizen will work that silk plantation since we lack other good food tiles.

turn 71.
During the coldest night ever Wu Zetian announced that the Great Lighthouse v1.0 gone live in Beijing. We send her flowers.
Barbarian axemen followed our warrior and both went near Ur's lands.
Hong Kong finished his latest project, but noone cares. They want to get some Dyes, but noone cares/got some.
Scout went north west, spotted some chinese warriors drinking vodka nearby. "They celebrate Great Lighthouse!" - thought our scout.

turn 72.
Another cold night, Catherine went to medieval, Zanzibar no longer friendly with us. Pretty Cathy got no Civil service yet, she got sexy Theologists for sure.
We hit 1 happiness mark (-2 from Zanzibar, -1 due new citizen in San Paolo). New guys from San Paolo went to copper mine initiation rite, then proceed to iron site. New citizen will come to that magic copper mine in 8 turns, it is so inspiring! They are nice guys, those San Paolo people!
We'll get more Ivory tusks from Wu for another 30 turns.

Meanwhile Barbarian axe went mad and continue to follow our warrior to Ur's lands. Spearman enjoyed another peaceful turn licking his wounds.
Meanwhile our sage hits the block with a new brasilian rhyme. Mathematics, next discovery will provide us Currency in 9 turns.

turn 73.
Hong Kong upgraded some archer to composite bowman, axemen probably sensed it and stopped following our warrior, both our units actively licking their wounds now.
Capital's worker started to pre-chop forest.
Scout found a silver mine and another chinese drunk unit - now a spearman. "Chinese people likes to celebrate things!" - scout thought.
Warrior found a missed detail on his map: some CS got horses nearby.

But... 2 brasilian workers are in danger working near the borders... "We should consider sending someone to meet this CS" - he thought.
So he went back to the jungle eager to defend his home and his people...

turn 74.
... only to face that axeman rushing to Ur's lands again! "Such a surprise" - thought the warrior. And step to some jungle to hide.
Meanwhile Rio got lucky - we have forest tile instead of jungle tile. And our worker is already chopping it! Plus we got a brand new watermill in Rio, Oracle in 5 turns, lvl 7 in 5 turns. People had a huge party singing "Long term investment!" loudly. They collected 211 fpt already, but still no prophet ...
Our scout meets another drunk chines warrior and an axeman. "Chines people like to play with barbarian axemen!"- he thought and step back to enjoy the action.

turn 75.
Rio had even huge party. They met a prophet! That was an old catholic, who immediately bring a brand new tithe/divine inspiration beliefs.

Nearest worker got motivated and shaved a turn of Oracle by chopping the forest.
Chinese spearman had a different kind of fun. He stab an axeman and poor barb went back to woods actively licking his wounds. Our scout got some popcorn and went around taking instagram shots.
Meanwhile Alex found Argos on the coast near marble, Suleiman got his 3rd city Bursa near Moscow.

turn 76.
Zanzibar desires Copper. So cute! Our worker finished a copper mine near San Paolo in that very turn! And we're back to 5 happiness now.
A motivated citizen in Rio went to a hill from a lovely riverside farm to shave another turn from Oracle. Oracle next turn! Library in San Paolo still at 2 turns, so some citizens there went to push it faster.
An axeman finally get from the fog near Ur, but our warrior went around. Spearman finally got back to full health, stops licking his spear and went to defend capital's worker. He sensed a new born barbarian nearby (maybe next turn, but nonetheless), so he went safe.
Our scout dropped his popcorn when he saw such a picture:

"Maya got some new ritual, sacrificing their settlers to barbarians!" - he thought.
He calculated his chances and stepped back. "Ive gotta find a 8th civ!" - he thought.

turn 77.
Rio got a huge party again. First, they've got Oracle. Second, Zanzibar became allied, 64/60.

We got 15 happiness for some turns, plus they still want this barbarian camp cleared. And third - we met friendly Tyre, mercantile coastal CS near Maya. They want a western camp cleared.
An interesting choice we had with a free policy. Monarchy or Patronage opener.
We got excessive happiness now, and we'll get another 4 @81 turn. Means we got enough for expansion. And even with 1 scout we found 8/16 CS with a good number of mercantile/religious CS. So early consulates provide a nice boost to everything we need, including units. And free aqueducts in only two cities doesnt look superb.
So we got Patronage opener, next policy in 3 turns.
San Paolo started a caravan, we can boost capital growth or complete Ur's quest with it.

turn 78.
Vatican no longer wants us to beat some gold out of Zanzibar. How cute!
Nothing special this turn. Really nothing special!

turn 79.
Chinese kung fu pandas grab the settler. Our scout couldnt do a thing but eating new pack of popcorn. Meanwhile Suleiman got Colossus. What a richbeard!
Rio got level 7, new citizen went to the silk plantation.

Final screenshots:

Settler/barbarian fun is not finished yet!

Spoiler Bird's view :

Spoiler Beliefs @t80 :

Spoiler San Paolo @t80 :

Spoiler Rio @t80 :

ROSTER
NotSure
avl8
Deau - up next
OmniPotent42
mad-bax
Optional

SAVE AND PICS

 

[Beorn-eL-Feared]

lurker's comment: Well hello there! Late to the bandwagon since I have too much on my plate these days to afford the temptation of BNW. So tempting. But it would devastate my Fall semester prep. Subbed and will read though!

 

[Deau]

Hi guys, I haven't opened the save yet but read the report. I don't think I can play the set before Wednesday or Thursday but seeing as nobody else commented yet, I assume this won't be an issue.

I have a few thoughts in mind but I'll let others comment first since this will be my set. Try not to influence (spoil) your thoughts with what I would do.

My only comment to people's attention is I was tempted to stop the caravan production. With coastal city #2 and #3 as well as china that should be in range, I was expecting most of our trade routes until modern would be cargo ships. Maybe excepted if we hit Petra in cap for the free land trade routes from satellite cities to capital to offset lack of good growth tile.

Since I don't like to undo other sets' decisions even though there's only 16 or so hammers put in the caravan, I'll let others way in on this.

 

[Deau]

Did everyone else drown or did I miss some new huge game release -_-?

 

[dembo]

The lurkers are still reading!

Edit: Wow, I've only made 5 posts in all my years of lurking? You should feel pretty special.

 

[Optional]

Very nice set and write-up! My internet signal was gone for a while, but it doesn't look like I have an awful lot to catch up on.

The undiscovered CS in the first picture has been visible for a while, it's one of the reasons why I suggested a scout before Oracle. Also there could be a CS west of Rio, because there's a barb camp there and we haven't seen those barbs, so I think they must have visited someone else. There's a land tongue there that we haven't seen the end of...

I would prefer to see the caravan finished. At least NotSure and avl8 wanted it, and I'm in favour of continuity in an SG, unless a project really makes no sense. But the idea to send food to our capital makes sense considering our happiness threshold and our capital-centred strategy.
A boat is no alternative for sending food to the capital, and we still have another slot available, that should definitely be for a cargo then. I personally would not have made any caravan or boat just yet, but there's much that I would have done differently in this SG anyway.
São Paulo can perhaps keep working that copper tile once the new citizen drops on it. If it grows fast it'll lose the pantheon quickly, while the growth lost from working the copper tile gets compensated by a quicker growth boost for our capital from an earlier finished caravan.

 

[avl8]

Thanks, Ive put much effort to do such a write-up

I chose caravan over cargo ship because
a) coast is not secure both south and north, we got some barbarians around probably. Dont think we want the rist before we at least scout the place.
b) we expect our capital to growth more both for science and production - so internal food caravan is a good boost.

Id like to recommend clearing barbarian camp as soon as possible. We can have problems moving our settler to a 3rd city spot. I think an archer can help with this, maybe even rushbought since we have nice income and dont want to save gold for settler.

 

[Deau]

Ok I'll stick to the Caravan. My main reasoning was that I was hoping to push for petra in capital specifically for that trade route but we can work with 2 land routes anyway so

I'll only be able to play the set tomorrow night so please others keep adding comments. I have been extremely busy and have a huge rush at work (asked to get site access for Saturday and Sunday in a government office job...)

Really sorry for the inconvenience although since there were so few replies to Avl's set I'm assuming my availability happened at about the best possible moment for others too o.o

 

[avl8]

Thats not a problem, Deau, everyone have such days )
Today is my last day before vacation... And its all about doing things when you lack resources. Kinda high difficulty game irl !
I vote for settling a 3rd city soon after we get NC. Ideally on the same turn, realistically - soon after NC is finished.