Wacky Ramky's Guide of Tomorrow (Siam OCC Deity Marathon Tiny Earth 8Civ 8CS)

[maltz]

Hi,

This is my fourth Civ5 story. You can find the first three here:
Roman http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=406745
Greece http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=407701
Aztec http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=408770

My dumbed-down Aztec Monty run helped me gather enough confidence to run a Science Victory OCC game in my favorite Tiny Earth with 8 Civs. My Civ of choice is Ramkhamhaeng of Siam. I will call him Ramky from now on. Ramky is wacky. I will give him some liness from time to time. (The Egyptian leader Ramesses II will be called Ramey2 for distinction).

Settings:
Deity, Marathon, Tiny Earth, 8 Civ, 8 CS
Allow Save Policy, New Random Seed, No Ancient Ruin, One-city Challenge

I actually first tried a game on Normal speed. Everything went well, but I felt something was missing. I missed the sense of carefully shaping a Civilization in Marathon, as everything happened "too fast" for me to appreciate. So I restarted the game back in Marathon.

Edited: City States are actually 34% cheaper on Marathon compared to Normal. So it makes Siam, a CS-dependent Civ, even more powerful on Marathon.

Siam is widely regarded as one of the best OCC Civ, since it receives a good boost from City States. All food and culture from City States are +50%for Siam. Essentially it reduces the gold required to buy the same bonuses from City States, since now 2 CS allies are equivalent to 3.

In my Monty game, I realized that each CS in average costs 3 gold/turn. So for Ramky, he can use 6 gold/turn to maintain 2 CS, with an effect of 3 CS. Or 9 gold/turn to ally with 3 CS with an effect of 4.5 CS. The more CS allies, the better Ramky's savings.

Spoiler :

001. Starting location is 50% success/failure in OCC. So with the experiences I gathered before, I am going to give a wish list of Ramky's capital.

(1) Real-world Thailand. Let Ramky be Ramky. I like the fact that Thailand is covered by Jungles, so I can get some +2 research later. I also like the Himalayas mountain to the north. That provides an invaluable shelter in an OCC game. Given that the AIs are not smart enough to attack through multiple routes at once, their units are likely to be congested by narrow openings.
(2) Adjacent to Mountain for Observatory
(3) On Plain (not Hill) for Windmill
(4) Adjacent to River for Hydro Plant
(5) Workable 5 luxurious resources, including Marble

When I load up the Tiny Earth map from Civ5's World Builder, I can see 3 tiles satisfying the wish list (except resources, which will be random). Since eventually the capital will be heavily populated, I also want to maximize the number of workable tiles. So location 1 is the best, followed by 2, and finally 3. Being coastal does not really matter in OCC, if there is no Whale or Pearl to be improved and sold.

Chapter 01. Settling in Thailand

Spoiler :

002. That wish list was hard to fulfill, since there are 16 spawn locations possible, and I only want one of them. In 2 hours of trying and about 50 restarts, I successfully spawned in present-day Thailand two times.

The first time, I was right beside Alexander. And I had almost no resource. That can't work.
What you see above is the second time. Originally, I didn't like the map (I will soon discuss why), but I can't even find another Thailand start after another hour of restarts! So I continued with this map.

Ramky's settler was spawn right to the northeast of the #1 spot in the plan. So I moved the settler to the designated #1 tile, right on top of the Spice.

Spoiler :

003. Sukhothai ("Dawn of Happiness" according to Wikipedia) was founded! On the first look, this map has every thing that Ramky asked for. 5 luxurious resources, even a food to start.

But that Gold is actually right outside the border of a City State and will be incorporated in no time. One less resource = -10 gold pre turn! That's way worse than Siam's City State bonus of saving 1 gold per turn per allied CS. (You can see how crazily profitable resource trading is.)

Spoiler :

004. But then I looked on the bright side - there is a bunch of Banana growing nearby. Wild Banana in riverside Jungle produces 3/0/1. So this is a nice early food source to increase early-game population growth (2 extra food becomes 3 extra food, a 50% bonus!).

And there is another jungle Banana further south. Later, I found an interesting use of these Bananas.

Spoiler :

005. After some exploration, Ramky was able to draw a map of the major inhabitants of the world.

City States: 1 Culture (Kuala Lumpur, which claimed the Gold) immediately to the northeast (present day China). 2 Maritime (Cape Town, Oslo) to the west (present day India, Saudi Arabia). Ramky is enclosed by useful City States, nice! There is another Cultural CS Seoul in Eastern Eruope. A lot later I found a military CS far away in West Africa (not shown).

Bismark of Germany: To the northeast (present day northeast China). Bismark's AI is one of the best - very large army, very prosperous cities, very high score, very rich.

Askia of Songhai: North Asia. Songhai got this crappy starting spot in my Caesar game as well. In that game he was badly beaten by his neighbors. I wonder whether he will become an underachiever again.

Genghis Khan of Mongolia: The Great Khan! Very large army, very aggressive, very scary. And Khan was mysteriously rich in my Greek game. Not sure where he got his mountain loads of gold from (when he had no luxurious resource for trade).

Suleiman of Ottoman: In my Roman game, Suleiman did pretty well despite being at war with everybody else. I hope him continue this trend. AI fighting each other = safe Ramky.

Ramesses II of Egypt: I don't have anything special to say about Ramey2... he was never good or bad in my Alexander game. An average Ramey. He must be programed to build wonders. Let's just hope he doesn't have Marble!

Spoiler :

006. Got a "you are so weak" insult from Bismark right away. I actually hoped that Bismark would declare war, so I can train some super soldiers like in my Monty game... but he never did.

Spoiler :

007. Bought the dye tile so the second citizen can collect 2 extra gold. The default border expansion is way too slow at the beginning. Buying resource tiles (at the base price) can make sure the Workers can improve on them when the corresponding technology is ready. Since I will buy them later anyway, it is better to buy earlier and let the citizens to start collecting some extra gold from them.

Spoiler :

008. Opened the research with Pottery and Calendar, so Ramky can immediately sell the Spice, where Sukhothai was founded on. Strangely, Genghis Khan was again extremely rich early game. I sold both my first two resources to him, and he paid cash!

And I want to build Stonehenge just like in my Monty game. This is wonder is too good to pass in OCC - lots of culture = lots of free tiles. Gold is too tight in OCC.

Spoiler :

009. Soon, it was the time for the first world census. Ramky was way behind the others! But that's just the reality in Deity. Let's see if Ramky can catch up and eventually win the Science Victory!

(to be continued...)

 

[Deussu]

I really enjoy your tales. Gonna subscribe and follow this!

 

[Arexander]

Another one!

 

[maltz]

Chapter 02. Some Old Tricks Worked, Some Didn't

First, I will briefly discuss the game setting. I found that I made my previous Aztec game a little too easy by assigning 6 AI Civs on Duel Earth. Most of them end up with only 2-5 cities (and one actually had no place to spawn its second, even if Deity AI starts with 2 settlers!). So Aztec quite easily became the tech leader at mid-late Renaissance.

In my earlier normal-speed attempt, I went with default 4AI Civ on Tiny Earth. But the diplomacy was unbearably boring (make A fight B. That's it!) So I again increased the number of AIs from 4 to 8 in this marathon game. I still expect the game to become easier since the AIs cannot eventually grow to 20 cities, but only 10 cities. At about 30% into the game, most Civs already have 4-8 cities and are doing very well in terms of score. (Ramky will stay as the bottom scorer for a long, long time.)

Spoiler :

010. Started building the Stonehenge right after the Worker (spent a few turns to build Monument, but only to be completed much later).

To catch up with Sukhothai's population growth, Ramky purchased another tile (his 3rd purchase) so the Workers can farm a riverside plain (2/1/1). Riverside plain is precious for its extra hammer. At this early stage, one extra hammer can make 10 turns of difference in the completion of Stonehenge!

Spoiler :

011. In terms of policy, I will use an identical setup as my precious Monty game until I think of a better alternative. I will only get the +33% wonder policy in Tradition, then get everything in Patronage except Cultural Diplomacy. Then activate Commerce for 25% gold in Capital. Finally, Rationalism for fast research. And if I have more policies... I don't know. Never got to that point before.

Spoiler :

012. With cash from resource trade, I could purchase the Library. In my Monty game, I mistaked Library's research boost to be 50%, but it is actually only 28% with a population of 4. (I forgot that the Palace offers 3 flasks/turn itself.) So Research Lab (+44%) and Public School (+34%) are both better than Library (+28%) at their respective time of availability.

Spoiler :

013. Bismark asked for a Declaration of Friendship! Dind't he just insulted Ramky earlier? But from experience of the Aztec game, I know the Civ leaders will keep asking if I keep saying no. So I agreed right here. Befriending Bismark pretty much eliminates the half of Ramky's war in this game.

Spoiler :

014. After Writing, researched Mining to enable worker to chop down the Forest on the Silk tile. I need to build a Plantation to sell it anyway. Chopping down a forest tile within the Civ's border produces 60 hammer on Marathon. That's 1/6 of the required hammer of Stonehenge. Saved another 10+ turns!

Next researched Masonry to enable worker to build a Quarry on the Marble.

The Gold to the northeast had been taken by CS Kuala Lumpur. From hindsight, I might have had a chance to rush-buy the Gold tile if I had used the original spawn point on the hill. But I will miss out on Windmill. Too late! Gotta swallow -10 gold/turn and move on. I can always cultural-bomb it back later.

Spoiler :

015. Purchased a second worker to accelerate tile improvement. In my precious Monty game, my tile improvement progress was seriously lagging behind with just one worker. So this time I learned the lesson and would have 2 workers on the field as soon as possible. (I actually forgot that I could have kidnapped workers from a City State or an AI Civ.)

Spoiler :

016. Stonehenge completed! I looked back on my Monty game's Stonehenge completion time - I am late by 11 turns as Ramky! Monty's capital was founded right on the Marble, so he had a boost of production from the start.

Spoiler :

017. Even on Deity, I find that I can always get Stonehenge if I rush to it (Pottery-Calendar to start and starting building it as soon as Calendar is completed). And I believe Stonehenge is the best starting wonder in OCC for accumulating Social Policies and Tiles early on. The best 2nd wonder is of course National College.

After Stonehenge, it largely depends on luck. AIs love to build the Great Library, Greater Lighthouse, the Colossus, the Hanging Garden, the Oracle, etc. I was very lucky in my Monty game to be able to complete the Great Library and the Oracle. In this game, someone else completed the Great Library even before I completely researched Writing! (And it wasn't Egypt I later found out.)

Spoiler :

018. Busted a barbarian camp for Cultural CS Kuala Lumpur! 50 free influence! But I have no budget to promote that relationship to alliance yet. Also, my priority will be on Maritime CS.

I don't really need addtional cultural points in the Ancient and Classical Era, since I will simply save extra policy until Medieval Era (Patronage). Cultural CS also gives more cultural points in later Eras, making their investment less worthwhile in Ancient and Classic Era.

While busting the barbarian camp, I made a big mistake in the warrior's promotion - Ramky's land is full of jungles (especially the entrance tiles), but I promoted the warrior through the open terrain route so I could better kill the barbarians in the desert... Luckily I didn't have much use of its combat ability anyway.

Spoiler :

019. Sold my 2nd resource to Khan as well. A rich buyer is a good buyer!

Much later on, I noticed that Khan once had -550 gold from Diplomacy overview. And the NEXT turn he went back to +300 gold. And the next turn he had 800+ gold! I noticed similar "debt-"forfeiting" AI in my previous game, too. One Civ suddenly gets loads of cash, even though all the other Civs didn't lose any gold. It couldn't be Great Merchant (too early for that, and each G-Mer is 1500 gold). Is that something special Deity AI deal?

Anyway, it is good that the mysterious cash flow to Ramky.

Spoiler :

020. Use Khan's gold to buy Maritime CS Cape Town. Sukhothai grows!

p.s. I am sorry that Ramky said +9 in the picture... he must be dreaming. Each city state gives +6 food. (Sukhothai did get +9 food after buying CS Cape Town. Ramky must be confused because of that. )

Spoiler :

021. Activated Aristocracy for 33% Wonder construction. I learned from Monty's game that the OCC capital is building some kind of wonder about 2/3 of the time. So this policy will save Ramky, who might need 750 turns (very rough estimate) to complete his Science victory, 125 turns of construction time. So he can build 3 more wonders from the saved turns!

Spoiler :

022. Since someone else got Great Library, Ramky has to either use an Research Agreement (RA) to pop the expensive Civil Service, or research Civil Service himself. RA takes 90 turns, and no one could sign it yet, so Ramky is better off researching Civil Service himself and enjoy the food bonus on riverside farms early, and use RAs to pop Education instead. I ended up signing 2 RAs to pop Theology and Education in rapid succession, but that's about 30 turns after my completion of Civil Service.

I also added Ramky's order of tech research for your reference. After Civil Service, I will go for Currency to build Market then the +10 gold/turn National Treasury.

Spoiler :

023. Instead of showing you many, many screen shots about who befriends whom and who wars/denounces whom, I will summarize everything in the Classic Era (still Ancient for Ramky, but Classic for everyone else) in one picture. Some events has not happened yet in the story. But it doesn't hurt to give a preview of it.

Red line = Denouncement and War
Green line = Declaration of Friendship

Ramky agreed with all invitation for Friendship. He ended up befriending Bismark of Germany, Askia of Songhai, and Ramey2 of Egypt. Most of these leaders are also befriending each other (There might be a green line between Egypt and Germany, or one less somewhere else, I forgot.) Let's call Ramky, Bismark, Askia and Ramey2 "the Gang of Four". Ramky also eventually befriended 2 Maritime and 1 Cultural City States.

Suleiman of Ottoman again becomes the top public enemy. He ends up fighting all of his neighbors. But he also grabbed Genghis Khan of Mongolia to war Askia. Ramky enjoyed watching live actions later from CS Oslo. Askia and Genghis Khan are also warmongers, fighting both their neighbors.

In general, Bismark and Ramey2 had the right idea of diplomacy of carefully choosing friends and foes. Ramky joined the Gang of Four, had no enemy, so he could concentrate on Science. His starting warrior was sent out to tour the world and will only return for upgrades.

(to be continued...)

 

[Yoshiegg737]

Ramky??? It's supposed to be Rammy! RAMMY! RAMMY NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

...

...

Uhh...subbed

 

[maltz]

Too bad he co-starred with Egypt's Ramey. So I try to make them sound as different as possible.

I looked up the meaning of Ramkhamhaeng:

Ram = Great
Khamhaeng = King

So this Ramkahmhaeng thing tells nothing about his real name! I shouldn't have split the word King (Khamhaeng). Ram would be OK (Hey, "Great"! How are you?).

 

[Yoshiegg737]

Too bad he co-starred with Egypt's Ramey. So I try to make them sound as different as possible.

I looked up the meaning of Ramkhamhaeng:

Ram = Great
Khamhaeng = King

So this Ramkahmhaeng thing tells nothing about his real name! I shouldn't have split the word King (Khamhaeng). Ram would be OK (Hey, "Great"! How are you?).

So then Rammy would mean...greaty?

Hey, "Greaty"! How are you?...I think it sounds way too much like the free "Graty" that comes with every purchase of a Slap-Chop

 

[vanjito]

Too bad he co-starred with Egypt's Ramey. So I try to make them sound as different as possible.

I looked up the meaning of Ramkhamhaeng:

Ram = Great
Khamhaeng = King

So this Ramkahmhaeng thing tells nothing about his real name! I shouldn't have split the word King (Khamhaeng). Ram would be OK (Hey, "Great"! How are you?).

Rammy = Greatmy

 

[maltz]

Chapter 03. Planning for the Dawn of Happiness

Sukhothai in Thai, the language invented by Ramkhamhaeng in legends, means "The Dawn of Happiness". How do we turn the endless jungles into a paradise? From my experience in Monty's game, I will still need lots of hammers. Jungle + Riverside Plain = 2/0/1. Farm + Riverside Plain = 2/1/1 (3/1/1 with Civil Service). So that's one very efficient way to get hammers and some extra food. In Monty's game, where excess food was abundant, I converted all Riverside Hills into Mines (0/3/1). In Ramky's game, I will Farm Riverside Hills to make 2/2/1 with Civil Service.

Spoiler :

024. For non-riverside Jungle Hills, I will keep the Jungles to make Trading Posts. Jungle + Trading Posts eventually generates (2/0/2/3), which is a great way to boost research. I ended up not harvesting them until much later, for I gave priority to harvesting tiles that contain Hammer.

In OCC, Flasks and Hammer needs to be balanced that the capital always have something really useful to build. So if I have too few hammers, I will end up with a long line up of queued buildings. On the opposite, if I have too few flasks, I will run out of useful things to build. At the time of writing this, I am maintaining the balance pretty well except for an earlier point, where I ran out of things to build and ended up building a Watermill. Not that useless, but I'd love to build a Wonder instead.

In general, my citizen assigning priority is:

(1) Academy - I will cover this later in the story
(2) Specialist: Science (Great research and to pop G-Sci to rush techs)
(3) Specialist: Engineer (Rush Wonders)
(4) Luxurious resources: 0/3/3 for Marble, 1/1/4 for Dye and Silk
(5) Riverside Hill + Farm: 2/1/1 (after Civil Service)
(6) Riverside Plain + Farm: 3/1/1 (After Civil Service)

Not worked until later into Rationalism policy:
(7) Jungle + Trading Post (2/2/0/3)

Not worked until Medical Lab
(8) Riverside Grassland + Farm: 4/0/1

Spoiler :

025. Sold my THIRD resource to Khan as well. Where did he get that money from?

Spoiler :

026. Since I am playing a Science game, I wish to sign as many Research Agreements as possible. Here comes Ramky's first RA! At the time Ramky was still researching Philosophy, so whoever could sign RA with Ramky had researched Philosophy already. RA in Classical Era is very cheap. Just 600G. (Medieval-Renaissance 750G, Industrial 900G). In terms of cost / saved-turns, Classical Era RA definitely has the best value.

Spoiler :

027. Soon found Askia to sign the 2nd RA. There are 7 Civs besides Ramky. Ideally Ramky could sign one RA with each of the other 7 Civs to pop techs at an insane rate. But this is unrealistic in OCC - income is too limited. I found that at most I could have only 4 RAs in effect at any given time. (about 2 RAs in average) Still pretty good.

Spoiler :

028. After the National College, Ramky had a choice of Oracle vs. Pyramid. One extra Policy is always nice. That's indeed what I chose, but only after 3-4 turns I got the news that somebody else already completed it! (Many Civs already had Philosophy, which unlocks Oracle.)

So I came back to this save and went after Pyramid, which offers the also-useful Great Engineer points and 50% faster Worker speed. Sukhothai is surrounded by jungles, which takes so long to chop (40+ turns for an improvement!). So Pyramid might be a very good wonder for this game. Ramky will have enough Culture Points (from his +50% bonus with friendly Cultural CS) for at least 1 extra policy anyway.

Spoiler :

029. I still had 79 turns till my first RA is completed. The most expensive tech to pop is of course Civil Service. The most "turn-saving" strategy was to research Theology, and use the first two RAs to rush Civil Service and Education.

Spoiler :

030. Eventually I decided to go for Civil Service first, and use the first RA to rush the less-expensive Theology instead. Civil Service greatly increases Sukhothai's food supply and population growth. By deciding to manually research Civil Service, I can get it at least 20 turns earlier.

It was a very difficult choice. I did enter Medieval a lot later this way (since Theology could be completed 28 turns earlier), so I missed 100-200 gold worth of City States influence fee and ended up having no wonder to build after Pyramid since I didn't have Theology yet (and had to pick the least useless building, a Watermill). I am still not sure whether I made the right decision here, all for maybe 0.5 extra population in Sukhothai. And I also saved 150 or 300 gold in my next 2 research agreements due to my slower entry into Medieval.

Spoiler :

031. This is Ramky's vision of future Sukhothai. If every tile is improved as planned, a total of 25 citizens will be working on the field to generate 57 food, 27 hammer, and 38 gold. In my previous Monty game, the capital could also field 24 citizens, but will generate 68 food, 23 hammer, and 31 gold. It seems that Ramky's capital grows more slowly, but produces more.

Spoiler :

032. The second world survey! Ramky was the leader of hammer! I think this figure actually means "hammer per city". Since when I get into the Demographic chart, Ramky's production actually ranks very poorly. Usually last place.

Spoiler :

033. I reloaded the autosave to see what other stats are available. Here comes the infamous Happiness chart again. It is nice that the AIs aren't running +60 happiness at such an early stage. I am sure they will, though. Ramky's Happiness was dangerously low. He will need some CS allies to supply luxurious resources soon. At the time Ramky already bought over Maritime CS Cape Town's support, but Cape Town had no worker at all (150 turns no war and no worker, are you kidding me?!) and still didn't harvest anything for Ramky.

Spoiler :

034. Ah here we know who robbed Great Library and Orcale from Ramky. Bismark! An unlikely scapegoat. And Egypt missed all the early wonders! A shame!

Spoiler :

035. Time flies in a peaceful game. It was already the time for the second round of resource trade. I am going to skip all the subsequent resource trades unless something unusual pops up. If I do not specify, Ramky always trades all his resources away and rely on City State's gifts to maintain a positive happiness in Sukhothai.

Spoiler :

036. With the cash inflow, Ramky was finally able to buy over a second Maritime City State (Oslo). Oslo had a worker a lot earlier and had harvested its luxurious resources. Now +12 CS Food for Sukhothai, and +6 Happiness!

Spoiler :

037. I haven't seen this CS mission for a long time, and never seen it given by two CSs at the same time. The two Maritime CS allies want Ramky to discover Mongolia. At that time even Ramky did not know for suer where it is. It is ok, Ramky will send out his entire army - one warrior - to look for Mongolia.

Spoiler :

038. In Civ4, food contributes to health, which is quite important for growth. In Civ5, food is largely useless. A riverside plain + Banana + Plantation becomes 4/0/1 (2/1/1 without plantation), exactly the same as a riverside Grassland + Farm. At the time I decided to build the Plantation. But it turned out to be a waste of worker turns.

Spoiler :

039. Found Mongolia for the two City States! +35 influence in each. So I got 700 gold-worth just by walking Ramky's Warrior a bit. (Spent 100 gold to buy Open Borders, though). I hoped that they would want Ramky to discover Egypt later, but they never did.

I must admit that in this game I played a little dirty - starting at mid-game, I started to get a lot of impossible CS missions such as "build a road to us (bugged)", wipe out another CS for us"... whenever I get these, I reload until I get a mission that is actually possible (such as "show us Marble", "show as a Great Engineer").

Note: When a resource trade has expired and returned while a City State happens to have a mission to see it, the player has to delay the subsequent trade for one turn for the mission to be completed. For missions about seeing a Great Person, however, the player seems to be able to consume the GP right away and still complete the mission.

Spoiler :

040. Ramky tried to sell Dye to Suleiman, who only agreed to pay a reduced price. Ramky was friends with Songhai, German, and Egypt. All of whom are Suleiman's enemies. Strangely, in Suleiman's relationship details, he was still Friendly to Ramky and even did not have the "You declared friendship with our enemy" line. Maybe some AIs try to hide their emotions more?

Spoiler :

041. So Ramky sold the Dye to Bismark instead.

Spoiler :

042. Even though Suleiman did not like Ramky very much, he still offered the default price for signing a Research Agreement. Does this means that one can even sign an RA with an enemy (not at war at the moment) as long as the AI is not stupid enough to declare war before the RA is over?

This is also Ramky's 3rd RA.

Spoiler :

043. The Pyramids, Ramky's second world wonder. Actually Ramky ran out of tiles to improve in mid-game, so this wonder did not help very much. But Ramky had nothing else useful to build at the time anyway...

(to be continued...)

 

[Sparthage]

lurker's comment: Another one!

 

[Pouakai]

Yay, another one. Subscribed.

 

[vanjito]

I bet this 'Science victory OCC' will end up in 'Domination OCC'

If you don't want to declare war on another Civ you can always get XP from Military city state (that you don't need allied) war with 'just stand there and heal' tactics (100 turns = 200XP). This can be backup tactic as you need only 3 units to Dominate if you outtech the others. There's no XP cap on CS's like on barbarians (30XP). Extra GG's don't hurt

You can get 'Picking on weak' label from wars with CS (maybe not from first war), don't know how much it hurts?

 

[Pouakai]

How do you have a 'domination OCC' seing as you can't raze capitals?

 

[maltz]

Domination victory is achieved once all the other Civs have lost control of their original capital (at the time of the victory). In OCC, all cities conquered by the human player is automatically and instantly razed. Razing is one form of losing control.

I have tried to avoid war in this game. You will see.

 

[DragonHead]

i just finished reading your last one. Will you conquer and outtech the world?

 

[Yoshiegg737]

043. The Pyramids, Ramky's second world wonder. Actually Ramky ran out of tiles to improve in mid-game, so this wonder did not help very much. But Ramky had nothing else useful to build at the time anyway...

Tear down your improvement's then build them again

 

[maltz]

Chapter 04. What a Wonderful Wat

Spoiler :

044. While I admitted that I played a little dirty to get possible missions from city states, Ramky got quite lucky usually in the first place. For example, CS Kuala Lumpur asked for Marble. Easy for Ramky. He only has to wait for the current Marble deal to expire and wait for one more turn for the CS to recognize that Ramky has Marble.

City State expand their border very slowly, and I don't think they are allowed to purchase tiles. Kuala Lumpur's Cotton (2 tiles away) was soon claimed by Bismark (3 tiles away). In this game, Ramky's neighbor CS also has few kinds of resources. Later I found that CS Seoul has NO luxurious resource (my first time to see that). But since Ramky is on OCC, happiness is not a great concern. I never have to worry about Happiness, which is everything in a regular game.

Spoiler :

045. The nice thing about (quite mistakenly) picking the slower tech (Civil Service) to enter Medieval is that I got cheaper Research Agreement. In this game I eventually signed more than RAs. I usually sign one in my earliest opportunity. That involves a lot of monitoring the Diplomacy panel to see which AIs have the required gold. Sometimes I forgot to check, and get the notice that "A and B has signed an RA!" If I have enough gold, I load the autosave from the last turn to sign it with either A or B.

Later on, most AI Civs will become insanely rich, and I will have to watch them sign RAs with everyone else like mad. This brings a significant change of my strategy. But I will discuss it more when we get there.

Spoiler :

046. Finally, Medieval Era from Civil Service! We are 30 turns away from Education, when Ramky's Science race officially kicks off.

Spoiler :

047. Since I couldn't get the Oracle, I saved one less policy than my Monty game to spend on the Patronage policy. I am uninterested in the other Tradition policies:

Oligarchy: +33% Home Fighting - Invasion is usually avoidable. If I see AI gathering a large army close to me, I bribe them to attack someone else first.
Legalism: -33% population unhappiness. Resources from CSs are more than enough to run a positive happiness. Totally useless.
Landed Elite: 300% border expansion. Very useful, but the same (and even stronger) effect can be achieved by Angkor Wat.
Monarchy: +0.5 gold per population. Only good later, but end-game cash will be less of an issue.

I think Patronage (except Cultural Diplomacy) is still the best policy for an OCC, even if the player is not using Greece or Siam, since City State's contribution in population growth (food), policy (culture points), and research becomes very significant. Great People are nice. Later on, I found that I get a free GP from CS about every 110 turns (the first one takes 1/2 of that) on Marathon. So the longer the game, the better Educated Elite (free Great People) becomes.

Spoiler :

048. Ramky saved 750 gold to buy over Cultural CS Kuala Lumpur's alliance. In Medieval, each Cultural CS gives +12 cultural points per turn. For Siam it is +18! So I delayed alliance with Cultural CS until medieval. Some people think Siam is also a very good Civ to attempt Cultural Victory. But I think in Marathon, Greece is a lot more powerful from 50%-off CS maintenance from the doubled maintenance fee.

Spoiler :

049. Time flied (early and mid-game was very peaceful and boring) and Ramky accumulated enough policy points for Scholasticism. Three CS allies instantly boosted Ramky's research by 54%! I didn't remember receiving such a great boost in my Monty game. So I went back and compared:

Monty: Scholasticism activated on turn 200. 3 CS allies. Research (self) 32.25 + (3 CS) 9.4
Ramky: Scholasticism activated on turn 220. 3 CS allies. Research (self) 36.75 + (3 CS) 19.79
Monty: On turn 220, Research (self) 36.75 + (2 CS) 13

While Monty and Ramky's capital generated the same amount of research (Monty's capital generates exactly 36.75 flasks at turn 220), but there is a large difference in terms of City States' contribution. I checked the population of the CSs in both games - they are comparable. If we only look at Monty's case from turn 200-220, we can see a huge boost of CS's research from 3 to 6 per CS from Turn 200 to 220. And if Monty had 3 CS allies at Turn 220, he would also have about 19 points of research from CS as well.

I read that CSs do not have their own technology research - rather they always keep pace with the average of all Civs (maybe with an offset, not sure). A lot later, Ramky will have two City States allies that have Aluminum. They have both built a mine above it, although they couldn't give Ramky the resource since they had not discovered the technology for it. However, on the same turn they got the Aluminum and gave it to Monty. So CSs seem to advance in technology as a unity.

So in this case, I can assume the CSs got their "research boost tech" together (as a technology) during turn 200-220, boosting their research contribution from 3 to 6 per CS. A Library seems to be too powerful (and late) for that. Maybe it is the CS's National College.

At 6 population,
Base = +6
Palace +3
Library + 0.5*6 = +3
National College +5
Total * 150% (National College) = 25.5
1/3 contribution (Scholasticism) = 8.5

That is very close to the actual amount received. So maybe the CS's automatically get their National College together.

Also in the background you can see a puppeted city Ankara under Bismark. The city was originally founded by Suleiman. It was taken by Askia at one point, but Suleiman took it back. Then Bismark declared war on Suleiman and took it over. Ankara would be the only Civ city that will border Sukhothai, so Ramky has to get a close eye on its owner and tries to distract the AI to war someone else.

Spoiler :

050. One of OCC's advantages is the increased number of social policies. Ramky led everyone else in this category until the end of game.

Maybe I should try an OCC Cultural Victory later, but I also suspect that I can actually out-generate the extra requirement if I have more than one city?

Spoiler :

051. The Marble deal expired. In order to complete the "We want to see Marble" mission from Kuala Lumpur, I had to let Ramky hold on to the Marble for one turn before selling it again.

Spoiler :

052. Finally, the wait is over and Ramky got his first RA tech. But Ramky was busy building Market and then National Treasury. So he had to delay building one of the wonders.

Spoiler :

053. Great Khan came to ask for another RA, but Ramky had to save up his cash for something really important - the Wat. Since Ramky is not as rich as Monty in my last game (one less resource to sell), I only cash rush buildings that make a huge difference. I rushed the Library in early game. Siam's unique building Wat (replacing University) is definitely worth it. It gives one more Specialist slot, giving much faster mid-game Great Scientist generation and research boost (each specialist = +3, after Library and Wat, it becomes +6).

Spoiler :

054. Second RA completed - Education! Since I have New Random Seed activated, I can simply reload the latest Autosave (I changed to one autosave per turn) until I get the tech I planned to get. I know this makes the game a whole lot easier.

Spoiler :

055. Although Ramky had been saving to rush Wat, it turned out that he was just a little short on gold. Since the building is too good to delay even for just 1 turn, he borrowed a little cash from the mysteriously rich Genghis Khan. 90 x 1 gold for 67 gold is the default borrow rate from AIs. A 25.6% lost from the human player. I only hope the AI can pay that much interest when they borrow from us. But instead we still lost gold from lending cash to AI. Please fix this in the next patch!

Spoiler :

056. Wat purchased! It has the same price tag as a University, but is quite a lot better. When I look up the meaning of Wat in Thai, I find that it only means temple. Maybe in the earlier days the only scholars are priests. People were either too poor and too uneducated to have time for research, or were too rich to waste their party time on research.

Spoiler :

057. What is wonderful? Wat. What? Wat is wonderful. After hiring the specialists, the instant research boost of 49% is only second to National College, even surpassing later Research Lab and Public School. This is the building. From this point on, Ramky started to generate more flasks than AI Civs, and he slowly but steadily climbed up on tech ranking.

I compared to my screen shots from my last OCC Aztec game. At turn 242, Siam already has more research points than Aztec at turn 269, even though Aztec's floating garden allowed a few more population in the capital. So Siam (Wat = specialist = G-Sci + research) is even better than Aztec (Floating Garden = population = research) in an OCC early-mid game. I will make more comparisons as the story progresses further.

(to be continued...)

 

[maltz]

Chapter 05. Science First, Others Last

I don't want to repeat myself with game elements that I already discovered and discussed in my past reports. Therefore, in this one, I will be less detail-oriented, and just focus on the big picture and some occasional, interesting moments.

Spoiler :

058. Here is a summary of Ramky's world in the Medieval Era. Ramky played no role in any war, so he saved his bribery cash and sent out his entire army (the starting warrior) to explore the world. This is what the warrior eventually learned:

Ramky finally met the ladies (Elizabeth and Wu Zetian). Elizabeth as usual does very well. Despite losing 30% of North America to 2 City States (usually there is only one), she was the score leader. Wu Zetian had northern South America. While not particularly high in score, she as usual was leading in technology and quite surprisingly, population. Beijing probably had a large population from farms along Amazon River. The ladies have not found their own friends and foes yet.

The gentlemen in the Old World kept the war going without Ramky's bribery, which is a big difference from Monty's game. Suleiman (Ottoman) was attacked on all fronts and had no friend. As the military technology advances, he started to lose outer, weaker cities. The shrinking of Suleiman's territory means the steady growth of Ramey2 (Egypt), Askia (Songhai), and Bismark (Germany).

Askia did pretty well in covering northern Asia (pretty much like modern Russia). Bismark, who lost to Askia in the opportunity to expand north, went west and took 2 cities from Suleiman. One of them is an Ottoman city. The other is actually a Songhai city occupied by Suleiman. Egypt also gained ground from Suleiman.

The friendship between Askia and Bismark made Ramky uneasy, because Bismark will eventually run out of Suleiman city to take, and decides to go after the extremely weak Ramky.

Ramky was the last in score since the beginning. There was always hope that he could surpass Genghis Khan, but Ramky was always a few points behind.

Spoiler :

059. Instead of showing you the exact research sequence, I will just list Ramky's sectional goals and buildings. After Education, Ramky used his 3rd RA to rush Astronomy (so he had to complete the sailing-compass line first). Then he used the 4th RA to pop Banking. I was thinking about popping Navigation, which is a more expensive tech. But I was afraid that Ramky will again run out of things to build, so I popped Banking first to unlock Bank. So Ramky had to get the Chivalry line first.

Then Ramky mostly focused on the lower route to get Chemistry, which unlocked Ironwork (+10 base hammers, National wonder that requires Workshop in every city). This is a different approach from my Monty game, where I rushed towards Scientific Theory while ignoring Chemistry. I found that there were too many techs between Astronomy and Scientific Theory, so I may as well get Chemistry first and build the powerful Ironwork earlier to enjoy the production bonus.

Other queued building on the list, after Market and National Treasury, are Workshop (+20% building construction rate), Porcelain Tower, and obviously, Observatory. Since Bismark beat Ramky in Great Library and Oracle, I was quite desperate to build Porcelain Tower (free Great Scientist, +2 G-Sci points/turn) before someone again beats Ramky to it.

Spoiler :

060. Ramky's warrior had to cross Elizabeth's water to discover the New World. But he had to pay 52 gold extra to open that border. I don't know why Elizabeth was initially unfriendly to Ramky, even though he was the bottom scorer and posted no threat to the top scorer Elizabeth. Maybe she thinks Ramky is annoyingly weak?

Spoiler :

061. This is a pretty classic representation of what Ramky's game looks like for mid-game. Ramky became the tech leader with the help of Education and Wat and a total of amazingly helpful 4 RAs, and had a good population (screwed by the demographic calculation, but not reflected on score). On the other hand, Ramky was pretty much last in all other categories.

I liked this result very much. I had done all I could to advance Ramky's research. So that's what Ramky should be able to achieve.

Spoiler :

062. Since Ramky missed both Great Library and Oracle and had no G-Sci points to accumulate, his first Great Person was a G-Eng coming from Stonehenge and Pyramid. I was thinking about using the G-Eng to pop the most expensive wonder at the time, Chichen Itza. But I took my experience from the Aztec game decided to go for Angkor Wat.

(1) Since I did not spend points into Landed Elite (Tradition policy, 300% tile acquisition), I either need Angkor Wat or a few thousand gold to buy tiles to accommodate Sukhothai's fast-growing population. Since funds is so lacking in OCC, and each subsequent tile purchase becomes more expensive, I think Angkor Wat saves quite a lot of gold and allow access to some nice but distant tiles in mid-game.

More importantly (but not obviously), more tiles gives Ramky a lot of flexibility in Culture Bombs. I can easily rob one or two resources if my border is already nearby. This could save a lot of cash in buying low-priority (thus expensive, up to 4X of the base price) tiles and earn a lot of cash by having the extra luxurious resource to sell. By the time the game ends, I was able to get 1 luxurious resource and 2 strategic resources thanks to Angkor Wat. So this is actually a very nice wonder for OCC.

(2) I tracked my total duration of Golden Ages from my Monty game - 19%. Chichen Itza will turn that into an additional 9%. The additional hammers and gold equals about 1 extra wonder (longer game for a Science Victory) and a few thousand gold. That doesn't sound so good, but quite decent. I decided to stay away from it mainly because Ramky looked like that he will have a lot less Golden Ages in this game. His early CS allies are very resource-poor. So there are very few smiley faces for Ramky. And Ramky had no war to give extra Great Generals to burn for Golden Ages.

Somewhere I read that people highly recommend Chichen Itza. But I think it is only great for a small empire with lots of luxurious resources (and activate Cultural Diplomacy) and lots of wars (burning Great General). Ramky has none of that.

Spoiler :

063. Ramky's 3rd RA got him Astronomy. Renaissance Era! Since Ramky had no war to worry about, he could spent all his cash on buying useful buildings and City States, and only research and slingshot the upper tech route. Ramky entered Renaissance 32 turns earlier than Monty in my previous OCC game.

Spoiler :

064. And I saved up enough cash to directly purchase Observatory. I ended up cash-rushing ALL of the research buildings and manually building almost all of the non-research buildings. So I don't feel any regret about Ramky's science victory - I did my best to rush it! (I still made mistakes. I will discuss them.)

Spoiler :

065. I left the Jungles on all non-riverside Hills to build Trading Posts. After Wat, they become 2/0/2/2 tiles. While this is pretty good, I still think 3/1/1 tiles to be on a higher priority. The extra food gives faster population growth and greater research. Each hammer is equivalent to about 3 gold at this point of the game.

Also about specialists: Throughout this game, I filled the specialists in all Sci and Eng slots, but completely ignored all Mer slots. I find the Mer slots, even with all the upgrades from wonders and policies, was still nearly useless even at the very last turn of the game. The only use of merchant specialists I can think of is to control population growth in a large empire.

I also included (again) the city output table from Monty's game turn 269. Ramky is doing much better in research than Monty, who had not built the Observatory yet.

Spoiler :

066. Ramky's worry about Bismark has come true. Bismark built a large army and launched an invasion on CS Kuala Lumpur! Given Bismark's sea of army, there is no doubt that Kuala Lumpur will fall. Ramky had a few options:

(1) Let Bismark conquer the City State. This will soon make Bismark a public enemy in the game, so Ramky could later on declare war on Bismark while Bismark is warring someone else from his unpopularity. Ramky would lose a Cultural CS ally and much research contribution from it. Since it is still quite early and every CS's contribution is significant, this is not a good option.

(2) Help CS Kuala Lumpur defend. Ramky will have to declare war on Bismark and raise an army in a hurry. That's probably impossible given Ramky's poor financial situation and the lack of experience of his warrior. Also, you might have noticed that Ramky had NO iron in his border. I was actually going to restart the game when that news struck, but I notice that a nearby CS ally has 2 Iron. Since Monty did pretty well on 2 Iron (plus more later), I decided to carry on and see how things go. So Ramky at most would have a small army of 2.

(3) Remain neutral but interfere with Bismark's invasion, so he cannot conquer Kuala Lumpur. Although Ramky only had 1 warrior, he could send his 2 workers to block tiles around Kuala Lumpur. There is also another way that I learned from my Monty game...

Spoiler :

067. Bismark came the next turn with a notice that that he accidentally attacked Ramky's ally. The current two options are both meaningless - one makes the AI dislike Ramky more and the other does not. There should be an option "Would you please stop attacking our ally?".

Spoiler :

068. There is actually that option, just not obvious. From my Monty game, I saw Napoleon agreeing on a cease fire with the City State he invaded for nothing. I thought a cease fire could not be possible within 10 turns of the start of the invasion, but I was surprised that it works! Bismark agreed to stop attacking Kuala Lumpur for nothing, even if it is only 4 turns after his invasion. (I couldn't wait further as Kuala Lumpur's HP was already red.)

It seems that the AI always agrees to unconditionally stop attacking a City State as long as the player asks for it. Personally I think this is a giant hole in AI diplomacy. But this only works once per Civ, as the next direct war declaration against any City State will make the Civ permanently at war with the 2nd CS target, and more CS may join the permanent war at the same time. This indeed happened later - I will show more when the turn comes.

Spoiler :

069. Ramky's 4th RA was completed. But since I spent cash on rushing Wat and Observatory, I did not sign any new RA in the meantime. It will be another 26 turns later until Ramky had enough gold to sign his 5th RA.

I don't like the RA system very much - too much random luck (without "New Random Seed" enabled). I hope we can pre-plan which tech to use and pay the right price for it, not to engage in some random draw. (This thing just goes against my nature. I have never bought any lottery in my life.)

Spoiler :

070. And immediately after Bismark called peace on Kuala Lumpur, he immediately declared that he is protecting Kuala Lumpur on the next turn. This is really ridiculous. But that also taught me how AI Civ think about City States.

In AI's mind, a CS serves 2 possible purposes - (a) a conquer target or (b) an alliance target. If the AI wants to conquer the city state, it will not declare/retrieve the protection. Otherwise, it will always declare the protection. In my Monty game, Napoleon first retrieved his protection on the city state that he will invade. So keeping track of which AI protects which CS is a good way to know what they want to do. AIs can be bribed to attack a CS easily if they want to invade it anyway.

Spoiler :

071. Time again flies and Ramky activated Educated Elite from Patronage. He was 34 turns slower than Monty in doing so. We will see how long it took for Ramky to get Great People.

Spoiler :

072. Porcelain Tower completed! I really like this wonder. It gives the useful 2 G-Sci points per turn and a free Great Scientist. In my previous games I always used G-Sci to pop techs. I wonder whether Ramky should make them do something else?

(to be continued...)

 

[maltz]

Chapter 06. Banana Academies

I was not a very good graduate student when I was in the labs, because I always try to deviate a little from protocols that are known to work. Now I try to make the G-Sci do something else - how about an Academy? I had the same question in my Monty game. But I know Science game is going to last longer...

I can assume there are about 450 more turns until the end of this game (Turn 750, regular game turn 250 or so). Ramky's current research rate is +117 flasks/turn. Academy is +5 science (without -2 food, the description is calculated based on the substitution of the original improvement). After National College, Wat, and Observatory, that +5 become +12.5.

So an Academy is +10.7% research. That influence slowly diminishes when Sukhothai's population grow. So by the end, the influence of Academy could be only half of 10.7%, about 5.3%. In average, an Academy is about +7.5% research.

If I have 450 more turns of research, with 107.5%research, I only need 419 turns to finish 450 turns of research, saving me 31 turns. That means as long as I can find any tech that takes more than 31 turns, I should pop the tech. If not, I should build the Academy.

And do I have any tech to pop that takes more than 31 turns? No. The most I had was 21 turns. So I built an Academy with that G-Sci.

From hindsight, my calculation was based on very bad assumptions: Research is important all the way to the end. It was not about end-game, but about the techs required to build space ship parts. By prioritizing on the upper and middle techs, I could finish building spaceship parts even if I completely ignore the lower route on the tech tree! I actually finished researching all the necessary techs for Spaceship parts a lot faster than 450 turns later.

It is my first Science game. So I forgave myself. This is a very good learning experience.

Spoiler :

073. So where should Ramky build the academy? I turned my attention on the Banana plantation. It was 4/0/1 after plantation, which is exactly the same as a farmed riverside Grassland. (Banana plantation reduces 1 hammer while providing 2 food, making it a really unspectacular resource improvement if the tile is already beside the river.)

But a regular Plain with Academy will become 1/1/1/5 . A Banana Plain with Academy will become 2/1/1/5. This Banana tile is actually ideal for an Academy! It feeds for its only citizen and receives all the benefits. So I sit the G-Sci directly on the Banana and to replace the unspectacular plantation.

Another reason for me to skip a free tech is that I was not in a rush to grab an important tech. I wouldn't blink to slingshot Scientific Theory (if I have the cash to rush Public School) or Chemistry (to start building Iron Work). But I had no important tech at the point to rush for.

Ramky shall call it the Banana Academy!

Spoiler :

074. As expected, Ramky received +11% research from the Banana Academy. I also think it fits the Science Thai theme pretty well, having an Academy with giant Banana trees grown from it. Actually, coconut trees would be better.

Ramky liked this Banana Academy very much. And he noticed that Sukhothai will have its 2nd GP, a G-Sci very soon...

Spoiler :

075. So that G-Sci will have the same fate! Ramky happened to acquire a second Banana tile and it will become the 2nd Banana Academy! And I didn't even have to chop down the jungle. (Wasted a lot of worker turns in the 1st campus).

Spoiler :

076. After Observatory, Ramky had nothing to cash-rush, so he again saved up enough gold to sign RAs. Khan was still very rich, although his score was marginally higher than Ramky's. (He remained very rich all the way to the end.) His technology was lagging so much behind. That makes him an ideal target for RAs.

Spoiler :

077. Ramky's starting warrior (now upgraded to Long Swordsman) explored the world further. He discovered something completely new - a Barbarian Settler! How can this thing even exist on Earth? Will the Settler pop a Barbarian city and compete? Will that crash the game?

Spoiler :

078. Upon capture, Ramky realized that the Barbarian Settler speaks English... he was an English settler captured by Barbarian! I also noticed that while AI escorts their Settlers on land, they completely ignore their Settlers while they are on the sea. This makes it easy for the Barbarian to intercept the Settler as soon as they land. I guess some AI fleet already came to eliminate the original Barbarian unit that made the capture.

While returning workers to CS earn influence points that can be covered to actual gold savings, returning workers/settlers to Civ earn gratitude that can easily evaporate as soon as they denounce you. And they will, eventually.

I saved the game and tried both options. If I return the Settler, England pops a city on the same tile right away. That island is just outside Ramky's capital. And there is ANOTHER England settler on its way to pop a city right here already. Do you want someone else to build their house right beside your front door? Right in your backyard? And they will grow to pop more houses around and then hate you for having your house too close to them? Darn AI.

Spoiler :

079. No way. That English Settler is converted to a Siam worker. And that worker's job is to remain idle right here, so the other English settler can never pop a city here. They will stare at each other for hundreds of years to come. And because of the nice work of this worker, the aggressive English settling was delayed for hundreds of years... (until the English settler realized that there are actually two tiles on the island, and you know what happened next... Darn AI.) I want to burn all these stupid cities down. But I have no navy!

By the way, soon I found out why Elizabeth didn't like Ramky - because she hates Bismark for some mysteriously reason. And Ramky declared friendship with Bismark.

Spoiler :

080. Signed another RA, this time with China. Not a very good target to sign RA with, but AI will sign RA with each other as long as both can afford anyway. So I may as well delay that. And Ramky had to pay 100 gold more since Ramky was one Era ahead.

Spoiler :

081. I was startled by the Golden Age message as I was not expecting it at all. It took Ramky 320 turns to reach his first Golden Age. Quite an "unhappy" early-mid game.

Spoiler :

082. So how is Ramky doing compared to Monty? I pulled the city table from Monty's turn 322 to compare to Ramky's turn 320. Monty had a lot more food surplus thanks to Floating Gardens. Ramky had a lot more research thanks to my aggressive science-first, others-last strategy. They performed similarly on other things. I am quite happy about this result. That means I have learned something from Monty's game and made a difference.

In terms of building, I still went with the Great People build in this game - National Epic + Garden + maybe Hagia Sophia (not built yet). I just started Garden on this turn. I really should have queued Hagia Sophia here, since Hagia Sophia is a world wonder that could be robbed by another AI. I was thinking, "hm, I should build Garden first to see the +GP effect a little sooner." That was stupid.

Edit: I suddenly recalled why I built Garden first. I looked at the turns remained to finish Chemistry (which unlocks Ironwork). If I built Garden, I could immediately build the Ironwork next. But if I build Hagia Sophia, I have to pause half way for Ironwork first, and come back later. That gave the Garden more favor as the GP effect could have been accumulating during the Ironwork construction.

Spoiler :

083. Although Elizabeth was the top scorer, Ramky still signed an RA with her - she will sign it with others anyway.

Spoiler :

084. 140 years had passed, and the English settler was still waiting for the Siam worker to move away. It will never happen.

Spoiler :

085. This is a summary of Ramky's tech plan in early-mid Renaissance Era. After Chemistry (for Ironwork, +10 base Hammer), the next goal is Scientific Theory and Public School. He will also build a Windmill (+15% production), which is unlocked by Economics.

Spoiler :

086. Ramky got enough cultural points to unlock Commerce for 25% gold in the capital. So far, I followed exactly Monty's footstep in social policy. Should I try something different later? I always like to try something different, don't I?

Spoiler :

087. While Ramky was happily sitting in his Sukhothai palace to watch his empire growth bits by bits, there was an annoying little ship with the similar yellow flag... an Egyptian ship? An Egyptian Settler ship? Egypt is all the way in Africa. Why is it sending a settler here?

Are they here to pop a city right on the doorway of Siam?!

Spoiler :

088. And Ramky actually declared friendship with the Egyptian Pharaoh. Ramky talked to Ramey2, asking him not to settle too close. Ramey2 agreed! That's great. (But Ramky will soon see what actually happened with that promise...)

(to be continued...)

 

[maltz]

Chapter 07. The Cost of Hagia Sophia

Spoiler :

089. Here is a summary of Ramky's world in the first half of Renaissance Era.

Score leader Elizabeth, Queen of England, made enemy of Bismark although they really had no reason to hate each other except that Germany attacked the CS Kuala Lumpur and declared war to Ottoman, just like anybody else except Ramky. From my dealings with Elizabeth, I find that she easily accuse other Civs. While her ability to run high in score is respectable, this kind of personality on an actual person is really... a b*h.

On the contrary of Elizabeth the b*h, we have Chinese Empress Wu Zetian, who made friends with Bismark, Songhai, Ramey2, and Ramky! Later on Wu Zetian also declared war on Ottoman, even though she had nothing to do with it. That's what a friend will do - just to show that she is on your side (Wu Zetian will show more of this trait in end game - we will come back to that). That's a really interesting pair of ladies in the New World.

Under extreme pressures from all neighbors, Suleiman lost more and more cities and replaced Ramky as the bottom scorer. If you run lower than a peaceful OCC human player, you are really screwed, Suleiman. The best benefactor of the sinking of Suleiman is Ramey2.

Ramky remained good friends with Bismark, Askia, Ramey2, and Wu Zetian. He also didn't have any negative relationship with Genghis Khan, although he the Great Khan never declared friendship.

I mentioned that Ramky should be worried about Bismark's lack of enemy. Bismark had two neighbors, Ramky and Askia. So...

Spoiler :

090. So I tried to bribe Songhai to attack Bismark. Askia's background really makes people think he is a bloodthirsty warmonger. But actually he is not. He just chose to pose in front of a hellish burning castle to look intimidating. Askia refused to war Bismark.

So Ramky asked Bismark to name a price to attack Songhai. And it was a very cheap price he asked! In my earlier Roman game, Monty asked 511 gold to betray his friend Elizabeth. Now Bismark only asks 416 gold to betray his friend Askia. I remember reading that Bismark is a really trustworthy friend. Now I know he is not. Bismark is even less trustworthy than Monty.

Spoiler :

091. Thanks to the Golden Age, Ramky accumulated enough cash to sign another RA, but none of the other AIs had enough gold. So Ramky used that gold to buy another CS. This is CS Ragusa in South America. At the time citizens in Sukhothai was demanding Pearl, so getting Ragusa's Pearl will achieve "We Love the King Days".

Spoiler :

092. Not very long ago, Egyptian Pharaoh Ramey2 promised to not settle close to Ramky, right? This is what happened! He settles right next to Ramky! What an empty promise. Maybe the AI thinks "7 tiles away is not really close". Indeed it is not too close. There won't be another overlap in tile harvest (the two borders meet in the middle, leaving no wasted tiles). But it is just annoying to have a city popped outside your front door like that. (It is actually a pretty good spot, with Horse, Gem, and Marble).

Spoiler :

093. It took Ramky 53 turns for Educated Elite (Patronage) to give him the first Great Person (GP). This was slightly faster than my Monty game (56 turns) and slower than my earlier Alex game (45 turns). I am still not sure what affects the GP generate rate...?

Possible factor (1): Turn number. Later = shorter wait.
Monty got his first GP on turn 311 (56 turn wait)
Ramky got his first GP on turn 342 (53 turn wait)
Alex got his first GP on Turn 361 (45 turn wait)

Possible factor (2): Number of CS allies
Monty had ~2 allies (56 turn wait)
Ramky had 3-4 allies (53 turn wait)
Alex had 6 allies (45 turn wait)

(If you remember my guesses in my Monty story, I now ruled out Culture points since Ramky's case does not fit the trend.)

Anyway, it is still a puzzle to me. I will do more comparison when more free GPs arrive later.

My default GP was a great Scientist. While this is really great, I wanted a Great-Art to bomb resources, just like my previous Monty game. +10 gold per turn is awesome. But to rob it from someone else is just fantastic.

Spoiler :

094. I have been planning for a bomb site since the beginning of the game! At that point I had three choices.

Choice (1): north. 2 resources to steal: Incense and Silver. Nice! I will first need to buy the mountain tile (1a). Who cares about what Bismark thinks?
Choice (2): northeast. 1 resource, Gold, and a useless Sheep. I will annoy Kuala Lumpur and lost Ramky's earlier investment on the alliance.
Choice (3): west. 1 resource, Fur, and 2 units Iron which Ramky have access already. Same as choice (2), Ramky will lose his investment on CS Cape Town.

It seems that Choice (1) is the best. So I went with it and slowly walked my G-Art there (bought 2 Open Borders to make that happen). I bought the mountain tile and...

And then I found that I cannot drop the bomb at (1) because of the fine-print rule: "Cultural Bombs cannot be dropped in someone else's territory"! I never had that happen in Monty's game since all of my bomb sites happened to belong to no one (London was automatically razed already). So I learned something new! (I seldom read fine prints. That's my fault.)

So that leaves me choice (2) or (3). Both are quite damaging since I already allied with those City States. I decided to delay the bomb until later, and reloaded until I get another type of GP.

I love "New Random Seed". It gives me so much forgiving learning opportunities. It also makes the game a lot easier, of course. Again I am not here to show I am so good so I can pass Deity. I am here to share my discovery with trials and errors mixed with occasional evil plans.

Spoiler :

095. So I opted for a Great Engineer to pop Himeji castle instead. This wonder gives +25% fighting bonus in Friendly territory - it is not Home territory, but Friendly territory. Fighting at home is the poorest outcome of War. Fighting at a friend's home (plus our home) is better. Fighting at an enemy's home is the best! If there is a wonder to +25% fighting bonus in a hostile territory, I will rush it with a knee reflex.

Spoiler :

096. So Ramky went on with his plan of building Hagia Sophia. I mentioned in the last chapter that I should have built it earlier than Garden - and here is the tragedy - England completed it when Ramky's version was 5 turns away from completion!

Now I could go all the way back to queue something else. But then I remembered how long it took my computer to reload to finally get a G-Eng... (my computer can't run anything bigger than Tiny map, and even Tiny map is so slow...). So I needed another evil plan.

My evil plan B is to go back to the turn just before England's Hagia Sophia is completed, and bribe Elizabeth to war Wu Zetian. I learned from a previous game that the AI would delay the construction of a wonder if it had a new war to fight (I guess the AI builds some units first), even if the wonder is only 1 turn away from completion, although most human players would be too attached to the wonder to not see its completion first.

And Elizabeth apparently disliked China enough so she agreed to war with just 258 gold. At the time China already denounced England (or the other way around? I don't remember). So that war happened almost naturally.

It worked! Ramky got his Hagia Sophia.

Spoiler :

097. Ramky signed his RA #8 with Egypt. This one happened on Turn 357, 32 turns after the RA #7.

Spoiler :

098. Bribing England to war China sounded like good idea at the time, until Ramky got the news that England conquered a City State that was allied to China! And it was a Maritime CS! That robs 6 potential food from Sukhothai! There was no way Ramky could liberate the city (he would only raze it). China was Ramky's only hope to restore that CS, but then it will be so indebted to China and will require a huge amount of gold from Ramky to buy it over. And will China be good enough to take it back from an entirely hostile continent? That feat is only accomplishable by a human player.

However, on the bright side, now nobody could complete a Diplomatic Victory. I view Diplomatic Victory as an early option for a Science or Culture game. I have read players worry about Deity AIs for buying all the City States before the UN vote (although they seem to be stupid enough not to do it, even if they do have enough gold to do that). In this game, there are 8 Civs and 8 CSs to start with. To win a Diplomatic Victory in this game, 9 votes are required. So that means the Civ's own vote (2 votes if the UN builder) + 7 CSs. The fall of Helsinki means that there are just enough CS to grant a Diplomatic Victory. Now if we bring down another CS...

So letting a Civ conquer City States is a very good way to block a Diplomatic Victory (or the player can do the dirty work himself/herself). This sounds like a better solution than disabling all CS in a Science or Culture game. City States are so helpful.

I also investigated a bit how the required vote number is generated. All data collected on Tiny earth at the very beginning (the number of vote required is set from the beginning):

4 Civs, 0 CS. Required vote: 3 out of 4
8 Civs, 0 CS. Required vote: 5 out of 8

Without CS, the player needs (Number of Civ)/2 + 1 Vote. The majority. Makes a lot of sense.

2 Civs, 1 CS. Required vote: 2 out of 3.
4 Civs, 1 CS. Required vote: 4 out of 5.
8 Civs, 1 CS. Required vote: 6 out of 9.

Compared to the 0 CS examples, the presence of 1 CS increased the vote by exactly 1 on top of (Number of Civ)/2. So does that mean that each CS increased the vote by one?

4 Civ, 8 CS. Required vote: 7 out of 12 - fits
8 Civ, 8 CS. Required vote: 9 out of 16 (this game) - does not fit
6 Civ, 6 CS. Required vote: 7 out of 12 (Monty game) - does not fit

Now it seems that the required vote is always (# of Civ + # of CS)/2 + 1. But the examples above does not fit.

And things get wilder if I have lots of CS:

2 Civ, 28 CS. Required vote: 10 out of 30
4 Civ, 28 CS. Required vote: 11 out of 32
6 Civ, 28 CS. Required vote: 11 out of 34
8 Civ, 28 CS. Required vote: 12 out of 36

The formula is definitely more complicated than a linear N = ax + by. (X = # of Civ, Y = # of CS). I can't find the formula to calculated required vote online. Maybe modders know where it is.

Back to topic - in a few-Civ game with many CS, it is a lot easier to achieve diplomatic victory. But still, bribing aggressive AIs to destroy a few CSs is the fail-safe way if the player does not have enough gold to block it.

Spoiler :

099. Sukhothai produced its 3rd GP, a G-Sci on the turn of CS Helsinki's fall. Used it to pop Economics.

Spoiler :

100. Ramky bribed England to attack China and her CS allies (Helsinki and Warsaw - more on Warsaw in the next picture) so he could complete the wonder Hagia Sophia before Elizabeth does. But at what cost?

Spoiler :

101. Cultural CS Warsaw, which is located in Northeast Coast of North America, is China's another CS ally in North America. Ramky saw its HP dropped to yellow very soon. So what can Ramky do? Ask Elizabeth to cease fire like he asked Bismark to stop attacking Kuala Lumpur? But Elizabeth was at war with China, so peace was blocked.

Hm. Peace is not blocked if Warsaw is allied to a neutral 3rd party, right? 1000 gold to buy Warsaw over from China!

Spoiler :

102. And that worked! Elizabeth agreed with an unconditional cease fire with Warsaw when it is allied with Ramky. This was such a cheap way to stop an AI from taking over a City State. It comes from the cheap design that all Civs can always immediately stop fighting with a CS after its allied CS declared a cease fire.

In general, I find the Civ5's CS diplomacy very friendly, simple, and cheap, and Civ diplomacy to be very unfriendly, complicated, and expensive. If I can take an average, then Civ5's diplomacy is about just right!

Spoiler :

103. China's foothold in North America was taken by England! That happened a little too fast. Elizabeth is only one step away from owning the entire North America (CS Warsaw).

Spoiler :

104. With two new cities, Elizabeth became the clear front runner of this game. Not long after this, she will force China to sign a cease fire that gives her tons of gold (probably China's entire income)? Her treasury will grow to 5 digits. That was a disastrous bribery from Ramky! All for a not-so-important wonder.

What should Ramky do to slow down Elizabeth? Ramky had a total of 1 military unit...

(to be continued...)