Airey
Prince
- Joined
- Feb 9, 2008
- Messages
- 509
Sorry to disagree with you.
In Marathon, the +GPT (gold per turn) nets player more gold.
If anything, CS maintenance cost less in Marathon.
I know you don't play normal speed
.....nice detail report
Wacky Ramky's Guide of Tomorrow (Siam OCC Deity Marathon Tiny Earth 8Civ 8CS)
- Thread starter maltz
- Start date
Sorry to disagree with you.
In Marathon, the +GPT (gold per turn) nets player more gold.
If anything, CS maintenance cost less in Marathon.
I know you don't play normal speed
.....nice detail report
Sorry to disagree with you.
In Marathon, the +GPT (gold per turn) nets player more gold.
If anything, CS maintenance cost less in Marathon.
I know you don't play normal speed
nice detail report
It's all scaled, so it comes to same...
In Marathon you get an ally for 1000 gold for same number of turns as in Quick or Standard, but 'reward' eg. 12 culture is worth much less in Marathon than in Quick. Also you need more food to pop a citizen and so on...
You end up paying a percent of your income for CS's and they give you a percent boost in science/growth/policies
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
It is a very interesting discussion. Of course I could be wrong. So I will study this matter deeper:
The scaling between different game speeds makes many meaningful comparisons about what becomes easier and what becomes harder. And how a player should focus on the easier things on his/her favorite speed to maximize profit.
(1) Time
The scaling between Normal and Marathon speed is 1:3.
For example, if a tech takes 10 turn to research, on Marathon it takes 30 turns.
If a unit takes 10 turns to train, on Marathon it takes 30 turns.
So time is scaled 3 times.
(2) City States
Generally, on Marathon, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 0.67 influence per turn.
On Normal, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 1 influence per turn
Now if we again condence 3 Marathon turn into 1 Normal turn,
A Marathon player pays 1000 gold to buy 100 influence from CS, which decays at 2 per turn.
On Marathon, Maritime CS gives 12 food per 3 turns. It takes 300% time to grow a population. (same for culture points and new policy)
On Normal, CS gives 4 food per turn.
After scaling, Maritime CS gives 300% of food per turn, but it requires 300% food to grow a population. So nothing changes. (Same for culture points and new policy)
That's why I said City States's costs are 200% on Marathon compared to Normal.
But I didn't take into account of the value of gold on Marathon. So the study goes on...
(3) Research Agreement (Renaissance), Resource Trading
Normal: 300 gold, 30 turn
Marathon: 900 gold, 90 turn
Marathon scaled to normal: 900 gold, 30 turn
RA is 300% the cost, and resource trading is 300% the income on Marathon.
(4) Income per turn
City's income stays the same per turn.
Marathon-speed city generates 10 gold per turn.
A Normal-speed city generates 10 gold per turn.
If we view 3 Marathon turns = 1 Normal turn, the Marathon player receives 30 gold/turn.
Other examples,
Busting a barbarian camp = 75 gold on Marathon, 25 gold on Normal.
So on Marathon, income is also tripled.
3 Marathon gold = 1 Normal gold
3 Marathon turn = 1 Normal turn
(5) City States, revisited
On Marathon, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 0.67 influence per turn.
On Normal, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 1 influence per turn. The relationship fee is 10 gold/turn.
After scaling time and gold:
On Marathon, 333 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 2 influence per turn. The relationship fee is 6.6 gold/turn.
So city states purchase cost is only 33% on Marathon, although it decays twice faster. City States are actually 34% cheaper on Marathon! I was wrong!
But if the player only do missions to win influence points from City States, the cost is eliminated, and City States actually become "twice as expensive" (you will need to do twice number of missions to keep them happy).
The scaling between different game speeds makes many meaningful comparisons about what becomes easier and what becomes harder. And how a player should focus on the easier things on his/her favorite speed to maximize profit.
(1) Time
The scaling between Normal and Marathon speed is 1:3.
For example, if a tech takes 10 turn to research, on Marathon it takes 30 turns.
If a unit takes 10 turns to train, on Marathon it takes 30 turns.
So time is scaled 3 times.
(2) City States
Generally, on Marathon, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 0.67 influence per turn.
On Normal, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 1 influence per turn
Now if we again condence 3 Marathon turn into 1 Normal turn,
A Marathon player pays 1000 gold to buy 100 influence from CS, which decays at 2 per turn.
On Marathon, Maritime CS gives 12 food per 3 turns. It takes 300% time to grow a population. (same for culture points and new policy)
On Normal, CS gives 4 food per turn.
After scaling, Maritime CS gives 300% of food per turn, but it requires 300% food to grow a population. So nothing changes. (Same for culture points and new policy)
That's why I said City States's costs are 200% on Marathon compared to Normal.
But I didn't take into account of the value of gold on Marathon. So the study goes on...
(3) Research Agreement (Renaissance), Resource Trading
Normal: 300 gold, 30 turn
Marathon: 900 gold, 90 turn
Marathon scaled to normal: 900 gold, 30 turn
RA is 300% the cost, and resource trading is 300% the income on Marathon.
(4) Income per turn
City's income stays the same per turn.
Marathon-speed city generates 10 gold per turn.
A Normal-speed city generates 10 gold per turn.
If we view 3 Marathon turns = 1 Normal turn, the Marathon player receives 30 gold/turn.
Other examples,
Busting a barbarian camp = 75 gold on Marathon, 25 gold on Normal.
So on Marathon, income is also tripled.
3 Marathon gold = 1 Normal gold
3 Marathon turn = 1 Normal turn
(5) City States, revisited
On Marathon, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 0.67 influence per turn.
On Normal, 1000 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 1 influence per turn. The relationship fee is 10 gold/turn.
After scaling time and gold:
On Marathon, 333 gold buys 100 influence from CS. It decays at 2 influence per turn. The relationship fee is 6.6 gold/turn.
So city states purchase cost is only 33% on Marathon, although it decays twice faster. City States are actually 34% cheaper on Marathon! I was wrong!
But if the player only do missions to win influence points from City States, the cost is eliminated, and City States actually become "twice as expensive" (you will need to do twice number of missions to keep them happy).
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
On the Culture bomb.. the Gold is within your Working Borders... meaning it gets you more than 10/turn
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
KrikkitTwo
Immortal
- Joined
- Apr 3, 2004
- Messages
- 12,418
Oh right. (Spoiler) Eventually the bomb is dropped there.
Nice... although, the bomb is probably best dropped when you know the location of Coal/Aluminum (to make sure you get some for Factory+Spaceship Factory)
.
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 08. Beginning of the End
Looking back, I think the biggest turning point of this game happened right here, turn 355 (50AD) - Ramky's bribery on Elizabeth made her a clear front runner and extremely wealthy. This forced Ramky to turn on his military campaign. Another reason that I decided to stop the peaceful approach is that I found almost all AIs started to get very rich and signed RAs with each other non-stop. I was afraid that Ramky will be eventually overwhelmed, since eventually everybody would have built every possible research building. And Ramky's 1 city will run against 10 cities.
I also find that war in Civ5 completely sustains itself. Winning on the battlefield forces peace. Later, I find that AI is sometimes willing to sign unequal treaties, giving thousands and thousands of gold to the player. Deity actually becomes the "easiest" difficulty since the AIs are way too rich. That makes the player also way too rich. The player can buy whatever he/she wants.
Enough day dreaming. Elizabeth was half a world away. Ramky had 1 land unit. What should Ramky do?
105. This is a summary of Ramky's world of the late Renaissance Era, in which Ramky will enter the Industrial Era quite a bit earlier than the others. Some events have happened in the story. Some will be covered later in the story. I will just give out the summary of things since the early Renaissance Era.
(1) The ladies in the New World, Elizabeth and Wu Zetian, became enemies even before Ramky bribed Elizabeth to official declare war. Wu Zetian became Ramky and a bunch of gentleman's good ally. Elizabeth became the clear front runner and had no friend.
(2) Bismark was expelled from "the Friends" (Egypt, Songhai, China, Siam) due to his aggression. Except for Bismark's original aggression on CS Kuala Lumpur, the rest was all Ramky's plot to keep Bismark busy so a defenseless Siam could remain safe.
(3) Suleiman's power continues to diminish. It was a matter of time until he got eliminated by Egypt, Mongolia, and Songhai.
106. Back to Turn 375 - another survey! Ramky's food supply, thanks to 3 Maritime CS allies, was +24. This was way more than the other Civs. Aztec and Siam are probably the only two OCC Civs that can feature this kind of insane food surplus. (In my Monty game, there was often a 40+ food surplus in Teno!) Lots of population = lots of research. Both Civs are very suitable for Science Victory.
107. Sukhothai's 4th GP was a G-Eng. Ramky used him to rush the Big Ben wonder - 25% reduced gold in purchasing units and building. This is a very good wonder considering how much more money Ramky will spend in buying. I was planning of at least buying the following:
Buildings: Public School, Research Lab (saving: 1000 gold)
Units: 2 Siege units (saving: 500 gold)
By the end of game, I saved at least 4000 gold from this wonder. Of course, I bought more stuff since I built this wonder, and I used the bought units to earn more cash to buy more. So the usefulness of Big Ben became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
108. Ramky finished the construction of Oxford University to reach Scientific Theory. To Public School!
109. Ramky was very disappointed to see that Sukhothai has no Coal. The closest Coal for Ramky, however, is not very far away - it is 3 tiles away from Ramky's border, currently sitting in CS Kuala Lumpur. So Ramky could wait for the CS to eventually mine the Coal. But how long will take? The extremely long wait for Coal actually triggered another questionable, but game-turning strategic decision for Ramky a few hundred years later.
110. I was debating whether to activate Order first to get +25% hammers in building before Rationalism. But I think the 8 turn (instead of 4) Golden Age from Rationalism is more important. Not that I think Golden Age is awesome. It is not. But it is the temporarily increased Gold income that will give Ramky about 1350 more gold... that's ONE extra Cannon right there.
Nah. 8 turns Golden age gives more like 135 more gold. That 1350 more gold comes from...
111. It comes from here!
I always like to try out some bold and unexpected strategy. So I decided to make Ramky gamble here - I will take a big loan, as big as possible, from Elizabeth with the help of Golden Age's increased income. (She had 6000+ gold at that time, but I could only get 3873 gold from her.) But Ramky will not declare war immediately. He is going to ship whatever he could afford from the loan all the way to North America's northeast coast, without being sunk by Elizabeth's navy, and then fight Elizabeth within CS Warsaw's territory (Himeji Castle, +25% fighting bonus).
From there, Ramky will weaken Elizabeth's army and slow down her development since she will slow down her normal building but instead produce more army. All extra army that sent to Warsaw's way should be eliminated with relative ease, since only Ramky had Cannon (and soon, Rifleman) at the time. Ramky will attempt to elicit Wu Zetian's support and maybe help her to retake Nanjing, and maybe even more.
That loan had an outrageous interest rate of 53%. So Ramky must finish the shipping within 58 turns or he will instead lose cash from it. How long does it take to ship units from half a world away?
It was Turn 386 (360 AD).
112. Actually, I decided not to use all of that cash to buy units. From Monty's game, I learned that 3 highly-promoted units are all I need. And siege weapons made all the difference later. So all I need were 2 Cannons. I used the extra gold to purchase Public School. As I mentioned earlier, in this game I rushed all of Ramky's Research Buildings, and manually built almost all others (I started buying some later when I got enough gold.)
From the top-right insert, you can see that Public School instantly increased Sukhothai's research from 131 to 173.75. That's +32% research! It is huge. In Monty's game, Public School boosted research by 34%. Awesome Research Building.
113. Bought two Cannons next. Never spent so much cash in one turn before. Now I feel like a Deity AI! Fortunately, Deity AI is incapable of rushing dozens of buildings from their unlimited money (or they have done it already?).
I queued Taj Mahal next to make sure that Ramky will not run out of gold before the units are shipped to Warsaw. Taj Mahal will start a 20 turn Golden Age. (I heard it was weakened by the latest patch. Never built it before the latest patch - can't confirm.)
114. Now Ramky had 3 units (1 Long swordsman, 2 Cannons), and his soldier count jumps to #5 in the world! It also tells how miserable #6-8 was. Suleiman had 1 unit left. Who was #6 and #7?
115. This is a summary of Ramky's research of late Renaissance - early Industrial. I think this is Ramky's own golden age of research. After the Oxford University gives Scientific Theory, he will have Archaeology from RA#5 (Mongolia), Biology from RA#6 (China) (to build Hospital, +100% population growth rate), and Rifling from RA#7 (England - that's why I delayed my loan and Cannon shipment until turn 386 - I don't want war before the RA is due at Turn 416). Ramky will also get Sukhothai's 5th GP (3rd G-Sci) to pop Dynamite, and CS's GP#3 (G-Sci) to pop Electricity. Then Ramky will beeline for Plastics to unlock Research Lab.
That's 6 free techs! Ramky only had to research 3 techs himself - Fertilizer, Military Science, and Steam Power. Essentially, all important techs are rushed. Ramky only researched the less important techs to fulfill the rushing prerequisite. Strange, but that's way faster.
116. After rushing 1 Public School and 2 Cannons, Ramky actually had enough gold left (he saved 1500 gold before taking the loan) to sign another RA with Mongolia.
117. Ramky's units sailed through Pacific Ocean defenselessly. But since he had no enemy, they arrived safely. Ramky's cash ran lower and lower after his short Rationalism Golden Age ended. But he was saved by the completion of Taj Mahal, which brought Ramky's balance back to exactly +0/turn.
118. Biology made Oil visible on the map. Ramky had no Iron, no Coal. So perhaps he will have oil?
Ramky has NO Oil!
And there is no closest Oil for Ramky. The only possible Oil for Ramky in the entire game was the Maritime CS Oslo's Oil on the Ocean. And even when Ramky eventually sent his spaceship to the sky, Oslo did not bother harvesting it. Ramky's game was completely Oil-less. Why didn't I choose Resource: Strategically Balance from the beginning? (I went with Resource: Standard.)
119. Finally, the RA with England had completed, and Ramky's Cannons had found the best (although not ideal) spots in Warsaw, ready to take on the English invaders. Just before war declaration, Ramky tried to ask Wu Zetian to join his war against England.
She actually agreed! 10 turns to prepare! This is the best diplomatic result I ever had in Civ5! I never thought it is possible to ask an AI friend to fight with me. That's just awesome. It will be even better if she can actually send some units from South America... is the AI capable of sea invasion, like the patch readme says?
120. Elizabeth at the time had already accumulated 15000+ gold. Ramky's puny income could draw out 469 gold from it. But each gold matters!
121. War declared on England! Long Swordsman upgraded to Rifleman! This was Ramky's first war. I have never had such a late first war before. Let the English Longbows come! We will light them up one after one!
(to be continued…
Looking back, I think the biggest turning point of this game happened right here, turn 355 (50AD) - Ramky's bribery on Elizabeth made her a clear front runner and extremely wealthy. This forced Ramky to turn on his military campaign. Another reason that I decided to stop the peaceful approach is that I found almost all AIs started to get very rich and signed RAs with each other non-stop. I was afraid that Ramky will be eventually overwhelmed, since eventually everybody would have built every possible research building. And Ramky's 1 city will run against 10 cities.
I also find that war in Civ5 completely sustains itself. Winning on the battlefield forces peace. Later, I find that AI is sometimes willing to sign unequal treaties, giving thousands and thousands of gold to the player. Deity actually becomes the "easiest" difficulty since the AIs are way too rich. That makes the player also way too rich. The player can buy whatever he/she wants.
Enough day dreaming. Elizabeth was half a world away. Ramky had 1 land unit. What should Ramky do?
Spoiler :
105. This is a summary of Ramky's world of the late Renaissance Era, in which Ramky will enter the Industrial Era quite a bit earlier than the others. Some events have happened in the story. Some will be covered later in the story. I will just give out the summary of things since the early Renaissance Era.
(1) The ladies in the New World, Elizabeth and Wu Zetian, became enemies even before Ramky bribed Elizabeth to official declare war. Wu Zetian became Ramky and a bunch of gentleman's good ally. Elizabeth became the clear front runner and had no friend.
(2) Bismark was expelled from "the Friends" (Egypt, Songhai, China, Siam) due to his aggression. Except for Bismark's original aggression on CS Kuala Lumpur, the rest was all Ramky's plot to keep Bismark busy so a defenseless Siam could remain safe.
(3) Suleiman's power continues to diminish. It was a matter of time until he got eliminated by Egypt, Mongolia, and Songhai.
Spoiler :
106. Back to Turn 375 - another survey! Ramky's food supply, thanks to 3 Maritime CS allies, was +24. This was way more than the other Civs. Aztec and Siam are probably the only two OCC Civs that can feature this kind of insane food surplus. (In my Monty game, there was often a 40+ food surplus in Teno!) Lots of population = lots of research. Both Civs are very suitable for Science Victory.
Spoiler :
107. Sukhothai's 4th GP was a G-Eng. Ramky used him to rush the Big Ben wonder - 25% reduced gold in purchasing units and building. This is a very good wonder considering how much more money Ramky will spend in buying. I was planning of at least buying the following:
Buildings: Public School, Research Lab (saving: 1000 gold)
Units: 2 Siege units (saving: 500 gold)
By the end of game, I saved at least 4000 gold from this wonder. Of course, I bought more stuff since I built this wonder, and I used the bought units to earn more cash to buy more. So the usefulness of Big Ben became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Spoiler :
108. Ramky finished the construction of Oxford University to reach Scientific Theory. To Public School!
Spoiler :
109. Ramky was very disappointed to see that Sukhothai has no Coal. The closest Coal for Ramky, however, is not very far away - it is 3 tiles away from Ramky's border, currently sitting in CS Kuala Lumpur. So Ramky could wait for the CS to eventually mine the Coal. But how long will take? The extremely long wait for Coal actually triggered another questionable, but game-turning strategic decision for Ramky a few hundred years later.
Spoiler :
110. I was debating whether to activate Order first to get +25% hammers in building before Rationalism. But I think the 8 turn (instead of 4) Golden Age from Rationalism is more important. Not that I think Golden Age is awesome. It is not. But it is the temporarily increased Gold income that will give Ramky about 1350 more gold... that's ONE extra Cannon right there.
Nah. 8 turns Golden age gives more like 135 more gold. That 1350 more gold comes from...
Spoiler :
111. It comes from here!
I always like to try out some bold and unexpected strategy. So I decided to make Ramky gamble here - I will take a big loan, as big as possible, from Elizabeth with the help of Golden Age's increased income. (She had 6000+ gold at that time, but I could only get 3873 gold from her.) But Ramky will not declare war immediately. He is going to ship whatever he could afford from the loan all the way to North America's northeast coast, without being sunk by Elizabeth's navy, and then fight Elizabeth within CS Warsaw's territory (Himeji Castle, +25% fighting bonus).
From there, Ramky will weaken Elizabeth's army and slow down her development since she will slow down her normal building but instead produce more army. All extra army that sent to Warsaw's way should be eliminated with relative ease, since only Ramky had Cannon (and soon, Rifleman) at the time. Ramky will attempt to elicit Wu Zetian's support and maybe help her to retake Nanjing, and maybe even more.
That loan had an outrageous interest rate of 53%. So Ramky must finish the shipping within 58 turns or he will instead lose cash from it. How long does it take to ship units from half a world away?
It was Turn 386 (360 AD).
Spoiler :
112. Actually, I decided not to use all of that cash to buy units. From Monty's game, I learned that 3 highly-promoted units are all I need. And siege weapons made all the difference later. So all I need were 2 Cannons. I used the extra gold to purchase Public School. As I mentioned earlier, in this game I rushed all of Ramky's Research Buildings, and manually built almost all others (I started buying some later when I got enough gold.)
From the top-right insert, you can see that Public School instantly increased Sukhothai's research from 131 to 173.75. That's +32% research! It is huge. In Monty's game, Public School boosted research by 34%. Awesome Research Building.
Spoiler :
113. Bought two Cannons next. Never spent so much cash in one turn before. Now I feel like a Deity AI! Fortunately, Deity AI is incapable of rushing dozens of buildings from their unlimited money (or they have done it already?).
I queued Taj Mahal next to make sure that Ramky will not run out of gold before the units are shipped to Warsaw. Taj Mahal will start a 20 turn Golden Age. (I heard it was weakened by the latest patch. Never built it before the latest patch - can't confirm.)
Spoiler :
114. Now Ramky had 3 units (1 Long swordsman, 2 Cannons), and his soldier count jumps to #5 in the world! It also tells how miserable #6-8 was. Suleiman had 1 unit left. Who was #6 and #7?
Spoiler :
115. This is a summary of Ramky's research of late Renaissance - early Industrial. I think this is Ramky's own golden age of research. After the Oxford University gives Scientific Theory, he will have Archaeology from RA#5 (Mongolia), Biology from RA#6 (China) (to build Hospital, +100% population growth rate), and Rifling from RA#7 (England - that's why I delayed my loan and Cannon shipment until turn 386 - I don't want war before the RA is due at Turn 416). Ramky will also get Sukhothai's 5th GP (3rd G-Sci) to pop Dynamite, and CS's GP#3 (G-Sci) to pop Electricity. Then Ramky will beeline for Plastics to unlock Research Lab.
That's 6 free techs! Ramky only had to research 3 techs himself - Fertilizer, Military Science, and Steam Power. Essentially, all important techs are rushed. Ramky only researched the less important techs to fulfill the rushing prerequisite. Strange, but that's way faster.
Spoiler :
116. After rushing 1 Public School and 2 Cannons, Ramky actually had enough gold left (he saved 1500 gold before taking the loan) to sign another RA with Mongolia.
Spoiler :
117. Ramky's units sailed through Pacific Ocean defenselessly. But since he had no enemy, they arrived safely. Ramky's cash ran lower and lower after his short Rationalism Golden Age ended. But he was saved by the completion of Taj Mahal, which brought Ramky's balance back to exactly +0/turn.
Spoiler :
118. Biology made Oil visible on the map. Ramky had no Iron, no Coal. So perhaps he will have oil?
Ramky has NO Oil!
And there is no closest Oil for Ramky. The only possible Oil for Ramky in the entire game was the Maritime CS Oslo's Oil on the Ocean. And even when Ramky eventually sent his spaceship to the sky, Oslo did not bother harvesting it. Ramky's game was completely Oil-less. Why didn't I choose Resource: Strategically Balance from the beginning? (I went with Resource: Standard.)
Spoiler :
119. Finally, the RA with England had completed, and Ramky's Cannons had found the best (although not ideal) spots in Warsaw, ready to take on the English invaders. Just before war declaration, Ramky tried to ask Wu Zetian to join his war against England.
She actually agreed! 10 turns to prepare! This is the best diplomatic result I ever had in Civ5! I never thought it is possible to ask an AI friend to fight with me. That's just awesome. It will be even better if she can actually send some units from South America... is the AI capable of sea invasion, like the patch readme says?
Spoiler :
120. Elizabeth at the time had already accumulated 15000+ gold. Ramky's puny income could draw out 469 gold from it. But each gold matters!
Spoiler :
121. War declared on England! Long Swordsman upgraded to Rifleman! This was Ramky's first war. I have never had such a late first war before. Let the English Longbows come! We will light them up one after one!
(to be continued…
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 09. Return of English Training Facility
As soon as Ramky declared war on Elizabeth, English units started pouring in Warsaw's border from three directions - west, north, and coastal. I hid Ramky's 2 Cannons behind a Hill tile, so the English Longbows can't touch the Cannons unless they climb over the Hill, but then they will be within the Cannon's firing range.
With the help of Himeji Castle's fighting bonus, each Cannon attack takes away at least 8 HP. After a few Open/Rough terrain promotions they could almost always achieve instant kills. The Cannons and Riflemen did take some damage, but I tried to let one rest while the other two do the fighting. So they were never overwhelming by Elizabeth's offense.
The invasion slowed down about 10 turns later. It was time for - not a counterstrike, but the famous "training" as described in my Monty game! More on that later.
122. Turn 420, time for new policy. I was again debating whether to go for Order's +25% production boost on buildings, but I found Rationalism's Secularism (specialist +2 flask) too good to be delayed further. I don't have so many turns left in the game - at most 300 turns. An 11% boost in research will save me about 30 turns. (And again, I didn't know Spaceship parts could be built a lot earlier. So the actual turns saved were a lot less, maybe 20 turns or less.)
123. As I mentioned before, since Renaissance Era, AIs became very rich and signed lots of RAs with each other. So Ramky better jump in as soon as he had the gold.
One way to prevent AIs from overwhelming an OCC player on Science Victory is to bribe them to fight each other. There will soon be enough hatred and wars to prevent RAs from being signed and finished.
In Ramky's game, Germany, Egypt, Songhai, China, Siam, and even Mongolia were more or less on the same side in mid game. That's really bad, since each Civ will sign RAs with the other 6. So Ramky had been, and will be working to break this huge group of friend apart, one after one.
124. 20 turns had passed since the beginning of the war. Ramky's army survived and became more and more experienced. He even managed to push back a little and pillaged an English Iron mine close to the border. That Iron used to belong to CS Helsinki...
China did surprisingly well to retake Nanjing! And in the following turns even Helsinki's HP dropped to yellow. Too bad Ramky's units were not around, so they missed the chance to liberate the CS (or for China to occupy). Wu Zetian stopped sending land units north after her initial failure in her invasion on England. A long stalemate followed...
125. Bismark came to Ramky with a very bold request - he wants about 2000 gold from Ramky (paid out in 90 turns). That's just stupid... I can't imagine any human player would give 2000 gold to an AI Civ, thinking they can earn their trust. That trust doesn’t worth 1 gold.
I know Bismark will immediately hate Ramky for refusing the ridiculous aid. So I had to act first - I bribed him to war Askia for an unbelievably cheap price. This should keep Bismark occupied and temporarily ignore Ramky's completely defenseless Sukhothai. That war declaration made Bismark even less popular - he got a few more denouncements.
Ramky also noticed that Bismark had an income of 0 gold. He must be paying someone else.
126. Bismark's denouncement came only a few turns later. Why did Ramky do to deserve it?
(1) Ramky declared war to another Civ - once.
(2) Ramky refused to aid him while they were friends.
(3) Ramky declared friendship to a number of Bismark's enemies (Songhai, etc.)
Interestingly, none of Songhai, Egypt, and China cared about Bismark's backstab on Ramky (no "Your friend found some reason to denounce you!" line). Maybe Civ5's AI is smart enough to ignore their enemy's denouncement on their friend, even their enemy and their friend were friends before. This denouncement means that their friend will only fight on their side more. Good news.
127. Turn 445. Ramky got his 2nd GP from CS. This time it is a Great Scientist from the first try. I used him to pop Electricity.
Monty game: 1st GP: 56 turn wait, 2nd GP: 97 turn wait
Ramky game: 1st GP: 53 turn wait, 2nd GP: 103 turn wait
That reversed trend of waiting overthrew my earlier guesses of Turn number. But the "number of CS ally" guess still holds. The more CS allies one has, the less turn it takes to generate the next free GP from Educated Elite.
Monty: 1st GP 56 turn wait (3 CS allies), 2nd GP: 97 turn wait (6 CS allies)
Ramky: 1st GP: 53 turn wait (3 CS allies), 2nd GP: 103 turn wait (5 CS allies)
Alex: 1st GP 45 turn wait (6 CS allies)
The awesome training ground is also shown from this screenshot. Two English longbows can damage whatever units stationed on top of that Hill, which is conveniently a Warsaw tile. So Ramky's unit gets +25% defense and +1 extra healing per turn. That hill gives 4 EXP per turn. Not as good as Monty's training ground (+6 or +8 EXP per turn), but still decent. And if I want some excitement, I could always push Ramky's man a tile further to get rained down by 3 units of Longbow plus a city defense.
The main purpose of the training is to obtain some incredibly useful promotions. The siege units will go for Range +1 (Range) and then Attack + 1 (Logistics). The melee unit will go for healing every turn (March) and attacking twice or attacking + retreating (Blitz). Godly promotions.
By the way, Electricity reveals Aluminum. So at least Ramky has Aluminum, right? Or at least close to it?
You can probably guess the answer already. I will have the discussion when the time comes.
128. This Ramky's early-Industrial/Modern Era Research Plan. He will certainly rush for Plastics to unlock Research Lab (unfortunately there is no more RA or G-Sci to pop Plastics). He will then leave the upper route alone, and come to the middle route, starting with Replaceable Parts. That tech enables Infantry, which is an upgrade from Rifleman. Then, Ramky will advance the middle route to get Rocketry, which unlocks Apollo program. The Space Race (actually, more about Ramky delaying others' progress to the race) is in sight!
129. Golden Age either does not come or comes in a bunch. After Taj Mahal, Ramky got his first-ever Great General in Sukhothai. But his entire army was still in North America! There is no use of him. Burned for the 4th Golden Age!
p.s. Did you see any Aluminum?
130. The real reason that Ramky sacrificed his first and only G-Gen was because he will get another one just two turns later anyway. It is the free G-Gen from Brandenburg Gate. I built this wonder in Monty's game as well. It also gives +2 G-Sci point. Essentially, it is a slightly weaker Taj Mahal with the actually useful G-Sci points (Taj Mahal is +2 G-Art point).
But it was still impossible for Ramky to ship this G-Gen to North America. Remember that worker that Ramky kept on an island just east of Sukhtothai to block the English settler? Elizabeth realized that she could settle on another tile soon after the war broke out. So Ramky tried to ship that worker back home... only to get him killed immediately in the end-turn. Water is too dangerous for Ramky.
131. I finally gave up resisting and went with Order, which upon unlocking gives +25% hammer on buildings (not Wonders, not Units, but regular Buildings). Ramky was building a Stock Exchange since I think the game would still last quite long, making this building a worthy investment. And maybe Ramky will build a Medical Lab later instead of buying it.
By getting into Order first, I delayed Scientific Revolution's 2 free techs for 40-50 turns. But since the game is long, I can certainly use that 2 free techs in some meaningful places further down the tech tree.
132. It was Askia's turn to beg! He asked for less, but Ramky won't even give him 1 gold! These AI leaders are miserable. They have so much obvious income, so much mysterious income, and are willing to give ALL away in some kind of stupid cease fire deal with another Civ leader, creating insanely rich monsters and leaving them begging around.
133. Turn 477. Ramky research Plastics himself - Modern Era!
And I checked up Monty's game log... Monty entered Modern Era on Turn 469. Ops! But Ramky already had Dynamite (Artillery). So Ramky is actually leading Monty by 3-4 techs at this point.
134. Elizabeth came with a peace treaty proposal. I thought she was going to ask all Ramky's gold and almost hit Refused. But... am I dreaming? Are you kidding me, Civ5?
Elizabeth, the top scorer who still had quite a few units and didn't lose any of her own cities yet, would PAY almost 3000 gold for peace? I agreed and looked at her remaining gold - she still had almost 17000! And a turn income almost 5 times as much as Ramky! What kind of idiot begged for peace when she still had 20000 gold?! Can't you just rush 30 units from your Deity discount? Speechless.
135. With an unexpected boost in income, Ramky was able to purchase the Research Lab about 10 turns earlier than planned. An instant +44% in overall research after assigning the specialists! Wonderful.
136. Since Ramky already entered the Modern Era, he needed to pay 200 gold extra to sign RAs with leaders who were still in Renaissance. Poor souls.
137. Elizabeth also came asking for RA! That was unexpected. But I refused, for Ramky might end up warring Elizabeth in less than 90 turns. Who can resist 3000+ gold from a war declaration?
But at the time I left Elizabeth in peace. There is another important war to fight. There is no time to waste. Soldiers, sail back to Southeast Asia!
(to be continued...)
As soon as Ramky declared war on Elizabeth, English units started pouring in Warsaw's border from three directions - west, north, and coastal. I hid Ramky's 2 Cannons behind a Hill tile, so the English Longbows can't touch the Cannons unless they climb over the Hill, but then they will be within the Cannon's firing range.
With the help of Himeji Castle's fighting bonus, each Cannon attack takes away at least 8 HP. After a few Open/Rough terrain promotions they could almost always achieve instant kills. The Cannons and Riflemen did take some damage, but I tried to let one rest while the other two do the fighting. So they were never overwhelming by Elizabeth's offense.
The invasion slowed down about 10 turns later. It was time for - not a counterstrike, but the famous "training" as described in my Monty game! More on that later.
Spoiler :
122. Turn 420, time for new policy. I was again debating whether to go for Order's +25% production boost on buildings, but I found Rationalism's Secularism (specialist +2 flask) too good to be delayed further. I don't have so many turns left in the game - at most 300 turns. An 11% boost in research will save me about 30 turns. (And again, I didn't know Spaceship parts could be built a lot earlier. So the actual turns saved were a lot less, maybe 20 turns or less.)
Spoiler :
123. As I mentioned before, since Renaissance Era, AIs became very rich and signed lots of RAs with each other. So Ramky better jump in as soon as he had the gold.
One way to prevent AIs from overwhelming an OCC player on Science Victory is to bribe them to fight each other. There will soon be enough hatred and wars to prevent RAs from being signed and finished.
In Ramky's game, Germany, Egypt, Songhai, China, Siam, and even Mongolia were more or less on the same side in mid game. That's really bad, since each Civ will sign RAs with the other 6. So Ramky had been, and will be working to break this huge group of friend apart, one after one.
Spoiler :
124. 20 turns had passed since the beginning of the war. Ramky's army survived and became more and more experienced. He even managed to push back a little and pillaged an English Iron mine close to the border. That Iron used to belong to CS Helsinki...
China did surprisingly well to retake Nanjing! And in the following turns even Helsinki's HP dropped to yellow. Too bad Ramky's units were not around, so they missed the chance to liberate the CS (or for China to occupy). Wu Zetian stopped sending land units north after her initial failure in her invasion on England. A long stalemate followed...
Spoiler :
125. Bismark came to Ramky with a very bold request - he wants about 2000 gold from Ramky (paid out in 90 turns). That's just stupid... I can't imagine any human player would give 2000 gold to an AI Civ, thinking they can earn their trust. That trust doesn’t worth 1 gold.
I know Bismark will immediately hate Ramky for refusing the ridiculous aid. So I had to act first - I bribed him to war Askia for an unbelievably cheap price. This should keep Bismark occupied and temporarily ignore Ramky's completely defenseless Sukhothai. That war declaration made Bismark even less popular - he got a few more denouncements.
Ramky also noticed that Bismark had an income of 0 gold. He must be paying someone else.
Spoiler :
126. Bismark's denouncement came only a few turns later. Why did Ramky do to deserve it?
(1) Ramky declared war to another Civ - once.
(2) Ramky refused to aid him while they were friends.
(3) Ramky declared friendship to a number of Bismark's enemies (Songhai, etc.)
Interestingly, none of Songhai, Egypt, and China cared about Bismark's backstab on Ramky (no "Your friend found some reason to denounce you!" line). Maybe Civ5's AI is smart enough to ignore their enemy's denouncement on their friend, even their enemy and their friend were friends before. This denouncement means that their friend will only fight on their side more. Good news.
Spoiler :
127. Turn 445. Ramky got his 2nd GP from CS. This time it is a Great Scientist from the first try. I used him to pop Electricity.
Monty game: 1st GP: 56 turn wait, 2nd GP: 97 turn wait
Ramky game: 1st GP: 53 turn wait, 2nd GP: 103 turn wait
That reversed trend of waiting overthrew my earlier guesses of Turn number. But the "number of CS ally" guess still holds. The more CS allies one has, the less turn it takes to generate the next free GP from Educated Elite.
Monty: 1st GP 56 turn wait (3 CS allies), 2nd GP: 97 turn wait (6 CS allies)
Ramky: 1st GP: 53 turn wait (3 CS allies), 2nd GP: 103 turn wait (5 CS allies)
Alex: 1st GP 45 turn wait (6 CS allies)
The awesome training ground is also shown from this screenshot. Two English longbows can damage whatever units stationed on top of that Hill, which is conveniently a Warsaw tile. So Ramky's unit gets +25% defense and +1 extra healing per turn. That hill gives 4 EXP per turn. Not as good as Monty's training ground (+6 or +8 EXP per turn), but still decent. And if I want some excitement, I could always push Ramky's man a tile further to get rained down by 3 units of Longbow plus a city defense.
The main purpose of the training is to obtain some incredibly useful promotions. The siege units will go for Range +1 (Range) and then Attack + 1 (Logistics). The melee unit will go for healing every turn (March) and attacking twice or attacking + retreating (Blitz). Godly promotions.
By the way, Electricity reveals Aluminum. So at least Ramky has Aluminum, right? Or at least close to it?
You can probably guess the answer already. I will have the discussion when the time comes.
Spoiler :
128. This Ramky's early-Industrial/Modern Era Research Plan. He will certainly rush for Plastics to unlock Research Lab (unfortunately there is no more RA or G-Sci to pop Plastics). He will then leave the upper route alone, and come to the middle route, starting with Replaceable Parts. That tech enables Infantry, which is an upgrade from Rifleman. Then, Ramky will advance the middle route to get Rocketry, which unlocks Apollo program. The Space Race (actually, more about Ramky delaying others' progress to the race
) is in sight!Spoiler :
129. Golden Age either does not come or comes in a bunch. After Taj Mahal, Ramky got his first-ever Great General in Sukhothai. But his entire army was still in North America! There is no use of him. Burned for the 4th Golden Age!
p.s. Did you see any Aluminum?
Spoiler :
130. The real reason that Ramky sacrificed his first and only G-Gen was because he will get another one just two turns later anyway. It is the free G-Gen from Brandenburg Gate. I built this wonder in Monty's game as well. It also gives +2 G-Sci point. Essentially, it is a slightly weaker Taj Mahal with the actually useful G-Sci points (Taj Mahal is +2 G-Art point).
But it was still impossible for Ramky to ship this G-Gen to North America. Remember that worker that Ramky kept on an island just east of Sukhtothai to block the English settler? Elizabeth realized that she could settle on another tile soon after the war broke out. So Ramky tried to ship that worker back home... only to get him killed immediately in the end-turn. Water is too dangerous for Ramky.
Spoiler :
131. I finally gave up resisting and went with Order, which upon unlocking gives +25% hammer on buildings (not Wonders, not Units, but regular Buildings). Ramky was building a Stock Exchange since I think the game would still last quite long, making this building a worthy investment. And maybe Ramky will build a Medical Lab later instead of buying it.
By getting into Order first, I delayed Scientific Revolution's 2 free techs for 40-50 turns. But since the game is long, I can certainly use that 2 free techs in some meaningful places further down the tech tree.
Spoiler :
132. It was Askia's turn to beg! He asked for less, but Ramky won't even give him 1 gold! These AI leaders are miserable. They have so much obvious income, so much mysterious income, and are willing to give ALL away in some kind of stupid cease fire deal with another Civ leader, creating insanely rich monsters and leaving them begging around.
Spoiler :
133. Turn 477. Ramky research Plastics himself - Modern Era!
And I checked up Monty's game log... Monty entered Modern Era on Turn 469. Ops! But Ramky already had Dynamite (Artillery). So Ramky is actually leading Monty by 3-4 techs at this point.
Spoiler :
134. Elizabeth came with a peace treaty proposal. I thought she was going to ask all Ramky's gold and almost hit Refused. But... am I dreaming? Are you kidding me, Civ5?
Elizabeth, the top scorer who still had quite a few units and didn't lose any of her own cities yet, would PAY almost 3000 gold for peace? I agreed and looked at her remaining gold - she still had almost 17000! And a turn income almost 5 times as much as Ramky! What kind of idiot begged for peace when she still had 20000 gold?! Can't you just rush 30 units from your Deity discount? Speechless.
Spoiler :
135. With an unexpected boost in income, Ramky was able to purchase the Research Lab about 10 turns earlier than planned. An instant +44% in overall research after assigning the specialists! Wonderful.
Spoiler :
136. Since Ramky already entered the Modern Era, he needed to pay 200 gold extra to sign RAs with leaders who were still in Renaissance. Poor souls.
Spoiler :
137. Elizabeth also came asking for RA! That was unexpected. But I refused, for Ramky might end up warring Elizabeth in less than 90 turns. Who can resist 3000+ gold from a war declaration?
But at the time I left Elizabeth in peace. There is another important war to fight. There is no time to waste. Soldiers, sail back to Southeast Asia!
(to be continued...)
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 10. For Coal and Factory
On the surface, Ramky's military campaign in North America was fruitless - he did not raze any English city. But he gained a huge amount of gold. Before the war, he extracted 2362 gold (subtracted by 30 turns of payback) from Elizabeth. At the end, he gained another 2994 gold. So this war netted Ramky 5356 gold! That's the most profitable war I have ever had in Civ5.
Strangely, I have never seen a Deity AI willing to sign an unequal peace treaty to me (it happens on Immortal almost 100% of the time). But in this game, I will eventually see two unequal treaties going in my favor. What's different this time?
In my latest game (a Culture game, I might do a story about it after finishing one), I tried to mimic what I did with Ramky and see if I can get a very favorable ceasefire deal. I succeeded - got 2 of them. I think what's common in these games is that the AI Civs did not really hate me - they have not denounced me. This was my first war with them. They were also at war with other Civs and City States at the same time. This could be an extremely powerful Deity strategy for a rather peaceful game. (For domination, just take all capitals and win.)
138. I wasn't expecting 2000+ of Peace Gold from Elizabeth. I decided to stop training Ramky's army in North America because there was something more important that requires Ramky's attention.
And that is Bismark's large army at Ramky's border! Bismark already denounced Ramky. So he could really start the invasion at any time. I can't have my army training half a world away.
The second reason is the long-overdue Factory (+50% hammer, requires 1 Coal). I want to get the +50% hammer bonus as soon as possible, especially by the time I build the Apollo Program and spaceship parts. In addition, I had received 2 City States missions to see Coal in Sukhothai.
But CS Kuala Lumpur seems to be totally ignorant about the fact that 6 units of Coal was sitting right next to their city. My original plan was to keep waiting until they realized they have Coal and start mining it. My patience finally ran out after 100 turns of waiting (Scientific Theory researched at Turn 386, now Turn 485). I don't want to wait further. I want to do something.
So I bribed Bismark to attack Kuala Lumpur. This was Bismark's second direct invasion on the City State, so I was 100% certain that Bismark will be bound to a permanent war with Kuala Lumpur. That means (1) Bismark will keep his attention on Kuala Lumpur instead of Ramky. Ramky could actually send some units there to help. (2) As soon as Ramky gets his G-Art (2 free G-Art from the wonder Louvre), Ramky will "abandon" Kuala Lumpur. Bismark should be able to conquer Kuala Lumpur. Then Ramky will retake it (but automatically razing it). Now G-Art can drop the bomb at unclaimed tiles and reach the Coal with 2 bombs. In addition, Ramky will be able to reclaim that Gold 3 tiles away from Sukhothai.
139. As soon as Ramky left North America, CS Warsaw wants Ramky's help to get rid of some local barbarians. Such a lame ally...
I find that the mission "Each Barbarian you kill will earn you influence..." is really a weak mission. Since (1) the influence point is only given when the killed barbarian is VERY close to the CS, but normally they are not, (2) there are only 1-2 barbarians to kill anyway.
140. I was startled again by the arrival of another normal (Happiness accumulated) Golden Age. Happiness is usually not an issue in OCC. So I seldom check it.
141. This is a summary of Ramky's research plan in late-Industrial and early-Modern Era. Since this is my first time to research most of the techs here, I just went with very basic knowledge of what I need to do to win a Science Victory.
After getting Plastics, I want to focus on the lower-middle route to unlock the Apollo Program. Then I will unlock all the spaceship parts. Two RAs will be completed, plus some free techs from social policies and Great Scientists. I will unlock some interesting late-game units along the way.
I totally ignored the bottom 1/3 without realizing that a Nuclear Power Plant (requires Nuclear Fission) could increase hammer and speed up the construction of Space Ship Parts. I got Nuclear Power Plant a little late - about 1/4 into my Spaceship Part construction. I should have diverted some of my progress on the upper-middle route to the bottom, since I ended up unlocking all of the Spaceship Parts long before I could build them.
142. I used a G-Eng (Sukhothai's 6th GP) to rush the Statue of Liberty wonder (+1 production from each specialist). I was running 5 Science specialists (2 from Research Lab, 2 from Wat, 1 from Observatory) and 2 Engineer specialists (Workshop, Windmill). +7 hammer on top of a base of 47 was a 15% boost! That's really good.
But Statue of Liberty was such an expensive wonder. Even after consuming a G-Eng, I still needed to build 10 more turns... I wonder if I choose Production Focus when consuming the G-Eng, will I get a lot more hammers and therefore finish it sooner?
Also, after Hospital, I just went with the Default focus to assign citizens. The Default focus makes me lose quite a few hammers but greatly increased population growth. From hindsight, I should have switched to hammer focus right after the start of Apollo program. I will end up having 3-4 less population (or more), but I should be able to finish the game at least 20 turns faster.
I ended up having too much research (from too much population) and wasted them on 2 Future Techs before the Spaceship launched. The extra population looks nice, but doesn't mean much.
p.s. In Monty game, the equivalent of this 6th GP was used to rush the United Nations. You can see how easy a Diplomatic Victory is.
143. It took me about 15 turns to ship back Ramky's units from North America. I declared war to Bismark, and used the 2 Artilleries (upgraded from Cannon) to blast German Medieval units from a safe distance! What a slaughter that was. And soon the siege weapons got their highly anticipated Range + 1 promotion!
Range 4 Artilleries!
144. After killing a few German units, Ramky fulfilled Kuala Lumpur's mission. Their relationship increased to a whooping 228 - 336 turns of alliance! I don't have to worry about this City State's loyalty forever. Unfortunately, I had decided to let this CS die so I can get the Coal earlier.
From hindsight, I am not sure whether this was a right decision, since later I was able to get Aluminum from other City States. So maybe if I stayed patient, I will get my Coal from Kuala Lumpur. At the time, I lost confidence in the City State's internal technology clock and thought they will never mind the Coal for me.
145. While Artillery was already new to me, this game was also my first time to every see melee units beyond Rifleman. Rifleman is upgraded to Infantry.
146. Once the AI Civs start disliking each other, bribing them to war is so dirt cheap. 100+ gold to make them throw away 10,000 gold worth of army! The constant warfare also makes sure that any AI does not have any significant army to suddenly destroy a weaker foe. (Elizabeth never had a real war until I bribed her to war Wu Zetian, so she had an easy time wiping out all resistance in North America.)
147. Here again I saw something unusual - Bismark asked me for peace, but just like Elizabeth, he is willing to tilt the deal in my favor! What am I doing right this time? Perhaps it is Ramky's "non-warmongering" quality. This was only his 2nd war declaration. And AIs only start hating the human player after he or she declares war for a 3rd time. (But if any Civ/CS was wiped out from a war, the warmonger quality is applied a lot sooner.)
But I didn't want to just agree right here - I want to see whether Bismark further sweetens the deal if his situation worsen. So I refused first.
148. I will capture and raze a minor German city. Ankara had been under Bismark since Medieval Era. Its population never grew due to the lack of food in the surrounding tiles. By removing Ankara, the Silver tile will soon be included by Sukhothai's natural border expansion. Nice!
And I built two Forts there from about 50 turns ago. I knew I would eventually have 2 Artilleries sitting here, bombarding Ankara from a safe distance.
149. Statue of Liberty! I think it is only a worthy wonder in a Science game, since late-game hammers are very important.
150. Several turns later, an RA rushed Penicillin, so I could use the saved gold to rush Medical Lab. This was the first non-research Building that Ramky purchased.
As planned, Ramky started to build Louvre. The two G-Art will drop the cultural bomb to incorporate Coal.
151. Signed RA#12 with Mongolia. Playing with more AIs makes winning a Science game faster, since only 1 RA is allowed at a time. So while I heard the claim that playing in a larger map is more difficult, it is only more difficult (takes longer) for a Domination Victory. Bigger map actually favors Science Victory and any peaceful approach that bases its income on resource trade. In a smaller map, it is more likely to run out of buyers for a particular resource because everybody got it. So far I have been deliberately using a crowded map to increase AI's interactions. Maybe I should try a default number of Civ later, just to see what's different. (Diplomacy will be more boring, that's for sure.)
152. After razing Bismark's Ankara, I moved forward Ramky's Artilleries and made short work of a few more German units. Then I asked Bismark what he would pay for peace...
All his gold, resource, and income! That income is more than Ramky's income! There is no way I could resist this deal. I needed more turn for Louvre to complete anyway. So I may as well give Bismark a break to make some units back so he can conquer Kuala Lumpur.
I was really surprised that Bismark would be willing to sign an unequal treaty, since he had denounced Ramky. So I really suspect it is the fact that Ramky was not labeled as a Warmonger that gave him the privilege of receiving a favorable peace treaty.
Going to war as a Warmonger is profitable. Going to war as a non-Warmonger is also profitable. War is profitable!
Now Ramky still needed a couple dozen turns to complete Louvre, and he had no intention to declare war on Bismark, who volunteered to double Ramky's income for 90 turns. There was no way that Ramky would let his army sit and rot. So his attention was again turned to the still-super-rich front runner - Elizabeth!
153. Ramky again packed his entire army on a ship to North America. In the meantime, the 7th GP (4th G-Sci) from Sukhothai rushed Flight. Nothing useful from it, but several turns later he could use the 10th RA (with China) to pop Radar, the last prerequisite of Rocketry, which unlocks Apollo Program.
154. Demographic chart of the world at Turn 504. Ramky's population finally beats China!
Crop Yield and Land: Ramky's crop yield was ranked at the bottom along with Suleiman. Ramky's land was only slighter larger than Suleiman's. Now all Civs except poor Suleiman had about 7-8 cities. So they easily out-harvested Ramky.
Production: Ramky's production was doing pretty good in his Golden Age (building Louvre). That base 64 hammer is magnified to about 100 after Marble (+25%) and policy (+33%).
Finance: Ramky was doing very well in finance thanks to Bismark for contributing 1/3 of his Gross National Product (Roughly 1/3 comes from Sukhothai. The other 1/3 comes from resource trades.)
Army: Ramky only had 3 units, but they are all pretty advanced. So that's already the 4th largest army in the world! That tells us how much constant fighting there was.
I also included Monty's stats from his turn of Domination Victory on Turn 494. Monty clearly had a lot more population and Crop Yield in Teno, thanks to Floating Gardens. Monty also had more hammer, probably due to his Factory. But Ramky had about 4 more techs than Monty (there are 77 techs in the game). So if Ramky would like to go for a Diplomatic Victory, he could have achieved it quite a lot earlier than Monty did.
155. Got one more policy point. Free Thought is not a very good policy for Science OCC, since Riverside tiles are always used for farming to raise population and research. So there are not many tiles left for trading posts. All of Ramky's trading posts were building on Jungle Hills. So now each Jungle Trading Post produces 2/0/2/3.
2/0/2/3 was enough to make Civ's automatic citizen assignment to give these tiles a high priority. As soon as Apollo Program starts, these tiles should really be ignored since it doesn't generate any hammer. And hammer is all that matters to Spaceship!
(to be continued...)
On the surface, Ramky's military campaign in North America was fruitless - he did not raze any English city. But he gained a huge amount of gold. Before the war, he extracted 2362 gold (subtracted by 30 turns of payback) from Elizabeth. At the end, he gained another 2994 gold. So this war netted Ramky 5356 gold! That's the most profitable war I have ever had in Civ5.
Strangely, I have never seen a Deity AI willing to sign an unequal peace treaty to me (it happens on Immortal almost 100% of the time). But in this game, I will eventually see two unequal treaties going in my favor. What's different this time?
In my latest game (a Culture game, I might do a story about it after finishing one), I tried to mimic what I did with Ramky and see if I can get a very favorable ceasefire deal. I succeeded - got 2 of them. I think what's common in these games is that the AI Civs did not really hate me - they have not denounced me. This was my first war with them. They were also at war with other Civs and City States at the same time. This could be an extremely powerful Deity strategy for a rather peaceful game. (For domination, just take all capitals and win.)
Spoiler :
138. I wasn't expecting 2000+ of Peace Gold from Elizabeth. I decided to stop training Ramky's army in North America because there was something more important that requires Ramky's attention.
And that is Bismark's large army at Ramky's border! Bismark already denounced Ramky. So he could really start the invasion at any time. I can't have my army training half a world away.
The second reason is the long-overdue Factory (+50% hammer, requires 1 Coal). I want to get the +50% hammer bonus as soon as possible, especially by the time I build the Apollo Program and spaceship parts. In addition, I had received 2 City States missions to see Coal in Sukhothai.
But CS Kuala Lumpur seems to be totally ignorant about the fact that 6 units of Coal was sitting right next to their city. My original plan was to keep waiting until they realized they have Coal and start mining it. My patience finally ran out after 100 turns of waiting (Scientific Theory researched at Turn 386, now Turn 485). I don't want to wait further. I want to do something.
So I bribed Bismark to attack Kuala Lumpur. This was Bismark's second direct invasion on the City State, so I was 100% certain that Bismark will be bound to a permanent war with Kuala Lumpur. That means (1) Bismark will keep his attention on Kuala Lumpur instead of Ramky. Ramky could actually send some units there to help. (2) As soon as Ramky gets his G-Art (2 free G-Art from the wonder Louvre), Ramky will "abandon" Kuala Lumpur. Bismark should be able to conquer Kuala Lumpur. Then Ramky will retake it (but automatically razing it). Now G-Art can drop the bomb at unclaimed tiles and reach the Coal with 2 bombs. In addition, Ramky will be able to reclaim that Gold 3 tiles away from Sukhothai.
Spoiler :
139. As soon as Ramky left North America, CS Warsaw wants Ramky's help to get rid of some local barbarians. Such a lame ally...
I find that the mission "Each Barbarian you kill will earn you influence..." is really a weak mission. Since (1) the influence point is only given when the killed barbarian is VERY close to the CS, but normally they are not, (2) there are only 1-2 barbarians to kill anyway.
Spoiler :
140. I was startled again by the arrival of another normal (Happiness accumulated) Golden Age. Happiness is usually not an issue in OCC. So I seldom check it.
Spoiler :
141. This is a summary of Ramky's research plan in late-Industrial and early-Modern Era. Since this is my first time to research most of the techs here, I just went with very basic knowledge of what I need to do to win a Science Victory.
After getting Plastics, I want to focus on the lower-middle route to unlock the Apollo Program. Then I will unlock all the spaceship parts. Two RAs will be completed, plus some free techs from social policies and Great Scientists. I will unlock some interesting late-game units along the way.
I totally ignored the bottom 1/3 without realizing that a Nuclear Power Plant (requires Nuclear Fission) could increase hammer and speed up the construction of Space Ship Parts. I got Nuclear Power Plant a little late - about 1/4 into my Spaceship Part construction. I should have diverted some of my progress on the upper-middle route to the bottom, since I ended up unlocking all of the Spaceship Parts long before I could build them.
Spoiler :
142. I used a G-Eng (Sukhothai's 6th GP) to rush the Statue of Liberty wonder (+1 production from each specialist). I was running 5 Science specialists (2 from Research Lab, 2 from Wat, 1 from Observatory) and 2 Engineer specialists (Workshop, Windmill). +7 hammer on top of a base of 47 was a 15% boost! That's really good.
But Statue of Liberty was such an expensive wonder. Even after consuming a G-Eng, I still needed to build 10 more turns... I wonder if I choose Production Focus when consuming the G-Eng, will I get a lot more hammers and therefore finish it sooner?
Also, after Hospital, I just went with the Default focus to assign citizens. The Default focus makes me lose quite a few hammers but greatly increased population growth. From hindsight, I should have switched to hammer focus right after the start of Apollo program. I will end up having 3-4 less population (or more), but I should be able to finish the game at least 20 turns faster.
I ended up having too much research (from too much population) and wasted them on 2 Future Techs before the Spaceship launched. The extra population looks nice, but doesn't mean much.
p.s. In Monty game, the equivalent of this 6th GP was used to rush the United Nations. You can see how easy a Diplomatic Victory is.
Spoiler :
143. It took me about 15 turns to ship back Ramky's units from North America. I declared war to Bismark, and used the 2 Artilleries (upgraded from Cannon) to blast German Medieval units from a safe distance! What a slaughter that was. And soon the siege weapons got their highly anticipated Range + 1 promotion!
Range 4 Artilleries!
Spoiler :
144. After killing a few German units, Ramky fulfilled Kuala Lumpur's mission. Their relationship increased to a whooping 228 - 336 turns of alliance! I don't have to worry about this City State's loyalty forever. Unfortunately, I had decided to let this CS die so I can get the Coal earlier.
From hindsight, I am not sure whether this was a right decision, since later I was able to get Aluminum from other City States. So maybe if I stayed patient, I will get my Coal from Kuala Lumpur. At the time, I lost confidence in the City State's internal technology clock and thought they will never mind the Coal for me.
Spoiler :
145. While Artillery was already new to me, this game was also my first time to every see melee units beyond Rifleman. Rifleman is upgraded to Infantry.
Spoiler :
146. Once the AI Civs start disliking each other, bribing them to war is so dirt cheap. 100+ gold to make them throw away 10,000 gold worth of army! The constant warfare also makes sure that any AI does not have any significant army to suddenly destroy a weaker foe. (Elizabeth never had a real war until I bribed her to war Wu Zetian, so she had an easy time wiping out all resistance in North America.)
Spoiler :
147. Here again I saw something unusual - Bismark asked me for peace, but just like Elizabeth, he is willing to tilt the deal in my favor! What am I doing right this time? Perhaps it is Ramky's "non-warmongering" quality. This was only his 2nd war declaration. And AIs only start hating the human player after he or she declares war for a 3rd time. (But if any Civ/CS was wiped out from a war, the warmonger quality is applied a lot sooner.)
But I didn't want to just agree right here - I want to see whether Bismark further sweetens the deal if his situation worsen. So I refused first.
Spoiler :
148. I will capture and raze a minor German city. Ankara had been under Bismark since Medieval Era. Its population never grew due to the lack of food in the surrounding tiles. By removing Ankara, the Silver tile will soon be included by Sukhothai's natural border expansion. Nice!
And I built two Forts there from about 50 turns ago. I knew I would eventually have 2 Artilleries sitting here, bombarding Ankara from a safe distance.
Spoiler :
149. Statue of Liberty! I think it is only a worthy wonder in a Science game, since late-game hammers are very important.
Spoiler :
150. Several turns later, an RA rushed Penicillin, so I could use the saved gold to rush Medical Lab. This was the first non-research Building that Ramky purchased.
As planned, Ramky started to build Louvre. The two G-Art will drop the cultural bomb to incorporate Coal.
Spoiler :
151. Signed RA#12 with Mongolia. Playing with more AIs makes winning a Science game faster, since only 1 RA is allowed at a time. So while I heard the claim that playing in a larger map is more difficult, it is only more difficult (takes longer) for a Domination Victory. Bigger map actually favors Science Victory and any peaceful approach that bases its income on resource trade. In a smaller map, it is more likely to run out of buyers for a particular resource because everybody got it. So far I have been deliberately using a crowded map to increase AI's interactions. Maybe I should try a default number of Civ later, just to see what's different. (Diplomacy will be more boring, that's for sure.)
Spoiler :
152. After razing Bismark's Ankara, I moved forward Ramky's Artilleries and made short work of a few more German units. Then I asked Bismark what he would pay for peace...
All his gold, resource, and income! That income is more than Ramky's income! There is no way I could resist this deal. I needed more turn for Louvre to complete anyway. So I may as well give Bismark a break to make some units back so he can conquer Kuala Lumpur.
I was really surprised that Bismark would be willing to sign an unequal treaty, since he had denounced Ramky. So I really suspect it is the fact that Ramky was not labeled as a Warmonger that gave him the privilege of receiving a favorable peace treaty.
Going to war as a Warmonger is profitable. Going to war as a non-Warmonger is also profitable. War is profitable!
Now Ramky still needed a couple dozen turns to complete Louvre, and he had no intention to declare war on Bismark, who volunteered to double Ramky's income for 90 turns. There was no way that Ramky would let his army sit and rot. So his attention was again turned to the still-super-rich front runner - Elizabeth!
Spoiler :
153. Ramky again packed his entire army on a ship to North America. In the meantime, the 7th GP (4th G-Sci) from Sukhothai rushed Flight. Nothing useful from it, but several turns later he could use the 10th RA (with China) to pop Radar, the last prerequisite of Rocketry, which unlocks Apollo Program.
Spoiler :
154. Demographic chart of the world at Turn 504. Ramky's population finally beats China!
Crop Yield and Land: Ramky's crop yield was ranked at the bottom along with Suleiman. Ramky's land was only slighter larger than Suleiman's. Now all Civs except poor Suleiman had about 7-8 cities. So they easily out-harvested Ramky.
Production: Ramky's production was doing pretty good in his Golden Age (building Louvre). That base 64 hammer is magnified to about 100 after Marble (+25%) and policy (+33%).
Finance: Ramky was doing very well in finance thanks to Bismark for contributing 1/3 of his Gross National Product (Roughly 1/3 comes from Sukhothai. The other 1/3 comes from resource trades.)
Army: Ramky only had 3 units, but they are all pretty advanced. So that's already the 4th largest army in the world! That tells us how much constant fighting there was.
I also included Monty's stats from his turn of Domination Victory on Turn 494. Monty clearly had a lot more population and Crop Yield in Teno, thanks to Floating Gardens. Monty also had more hammer, probably due to his Factory. But Ramky had about 4 more techs than Monty (there are 77 techs in the game). So if Ramky would like to go for a Diplomatic Victory, he could have achieved it quite a lot earlier than Monty did.
Spoiler :
155. Got one more policy point. Free Thought is not a very good policy for Science OCC, since Riverside tiles are always used for farming to raise population and research. So there are not many tiles left for trading posts. All of Ramky's trading posts were building on Jungle Hills. So now each Jungle Trading Post produces 2/0/2/3.
2/0/2/3 was enough to make Civ's automatic citizen assignment to give these tiles a high priority. As soon as Apollo Program starts, these tiles should really be ignored since it doesn't generate any hammer. And hammer is all that matters to Spaceship!
(to be continued...)
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 11. Range 4 the Win
Yesterday, I read about a forum discussion about how a player's every Deity game ends up playing as an OCC (to avoid being attacked) until Cannon and Artillery, and then use them to expand. It seems that my OCC games show this trend as well, since Cannon was such a superior unit during its time.
Same here. Ramky can use Artilleries (and later Rocket Artilleries) to kick everyone's ass! But I still tried to play my best Science game (which is very boring).
156. This is a summary of Ramky's World of Industrial - early Modern Era (for Ramky, including late Modern Era and Future Era - that's the end of game!)
Ramky first defeated the most hostile and powerful Elizabeth. Then he came back to dispatch Bismark. Then he moved on to Genghis Khan. The prosperity then belonged solely to the ground of Friends, Egypt, Songhai, China, and Siam.
Ramky could have stopped his war there and had endless warm greetings and chats with his allies. But being the wacky Ramky, he proceeded with a series of briberies to dissolve the group of friends (Egypt, Songhai, China). Friends betrayed friends. They started denouncing each other. One after one, they got isolated. Then Ramky punished them in the name of Justice. It was too late when Wu Zetian realized that she was the only one standing in Ramky's path of Domination Victory.
It was a pretty classic evil warmonger's path to conquer the world. But Ramky still played his Science game in the background! I will try to cover more about Science and less about how Artillery kicks ass.
157. Well, I got a new record! The second war with England became my most profitable war - 6364 gold! And Elizabeth still had 10k left!
I often read that people feel guilty about taking Deity AI's ungodly amount of gold before war. I totally agree. I find it hard to draw the line, though. Can I force AI to sign an unequal peace treaty, and take a ungodly amount of gold? Can I bribe AI to throw away 10K worth of army with 0.1K gold?
I have full respects for players who handicap themselves following a spotless morality. For me, I just want to find some fun in a game. I think exploiting AI is actually quite fun in the first few times! And especially if I am the one who find the exploit!
158. So what does Ramky do with that kind of money? RA seems to be a great idea. Ramky already signed RA with Egypt and Mongol. China and Songhai was not wealthy enough.
No worries. Ramky is here with a very favorable loan. Now you have enough gold to sign the next RA with Ramky.
159. Same loan here. Signed the RA#14 with Songhai. I would do that to Suleiman, too. But I didn't expect him to survive for more than 90 turns. (And he didn't.)
160. Ramky's army came back to North America, this time with a Great General! Two Artilleries are more than enough to water down a small town with defense of 20, even in front of defending Longbows.
161. Ramky had researched all prerequisites of Rocketry, which unlocks Apollo Program. Then Ramky proceeded on the upper-middle route to enable all spaceship parts. As I discussed before, I should have researched the lower route to unlock Nuclear Power Plant first to boost production, since I ended up having a long line up of Spaceship Parts to build.
163. (There is no 162. I accidentally skipped it in picture numbering.) The Louvre! 2 free G-Art to bomb!
164. Ah this is too good to miss. A range-4 Artillery takes out one range-3 Longbow per shot. Nice!
165. With all that godly gold from Elizabeth, Ramky bought over CS Belgrade (military) in West Africa. They have Aluminum; Ramky does not! But the CS worker was converting that tile from a mine to a farm... but soon it was converted to a mine from a farm. Then soon it was converted to a farm from a mine. What is the CS thinking? Is that how it balance food and hammer?
166. This is the bomb plan. As soon as CS Kuala Lumpur is conquered and retaken by Ramky's army, Bomb #1 will be dropped at B1 to get the Gold. Then 10 turns later, Bomb #2 will be dropped at B2 to get Coal and Cotton from Bismark (as a bonus).
167. Ramky was so far ahead in technology. Maybe he should just press the "I win" bottom. Well, there are still many things for me to learn in late game.
168. Ramky actually ran out of meaningful things to build, so he started building Barracks, Heroic Epic, etc. He will need to rush some units soon, as he had no army nearby to retake Kuala Lumpur. (His army was again in North America.)
169. Since Ramky got so rich so easily, I got really careless. I rushed probably one of the worst buildings in the game - Military Academy. It was so expensive and offer so little advantage. I was deeply attracted by its description - +15 XP for all land units. That's nice! The Artilleries in North America could use that boost to get the godly Range + 1 and Attack +1 sooner.
And it turned out that the +15 XP only applies to new units from the city... just like Barrack and Armory. I should have just bought the Armory for the SAME effect and 720 gold cheaper. I threw away 720 gold just like that and I didn't even bother loading the autosave!
170. In terms of real military, I rushed Artillery and an Infantry. I hoped that should be enough to retake Kuala Lumpur.
And indeed, they were enough.
171. Kuala Lumpur, loyal friend of Ramky, fell into the hand of Bismark - everything happened according Ramky's plan.
There was no way for Ramky to liberate it back, since Ramky was on OCC. I think I will never do another OCC game, since it takes away the fun of liberating City States or other AI Civs. I can always do an OCC without the OCC setting.
172. And the same turn saw the fall of London! The Artilleries fired from far away. London had no chance at all. First capital down!
173. Immediately got denounced by Suleiman. He was the public enemy of the name, and had denouncement every single Civ that declared war on him - and that's almost everybody. I doubt anyone would take his denouncement seriously.
174. War was declared on Bismark (too bad Ramky lost that awesome income). Under to cover fire of the Artillery, the Infantry unit gave the final blow to Kuala Lumpur. It is forever gone! The first bomb was dropped immediately.
And Ramky sold the Gold immediately.
175. Finally, Rocketry! It also unlocks Rocket Artillery, the ultimate siege weapon. But Ramky had no Aluminum to upgrade Artillery to Rocket Artillery. He would again have to wait for City States. A long, long wait.
176. The artillery now receives Logistics (+1 attack). Two 4-Range attacks! That 38 defense on Helsinki is nothing, as long as the Infantry unit can stay there to provide the line of sight.
177. What does the Apollo Program look like? It turned out Apollo Program is just like a building that needs to be constructed by the city. Although it is not really a "building" building, a "wonder" building, or "unit" building... it does not receive bonuses from any categories. It cannot be rushed by a G-Eng. It took an awful long time to build! Why can a player rush a UN, but not the Apollo Program?
I actually built a Mint in Sukhothai after getting the gold tile. That increases the tile output by 3 gold/turn. After Market, Bank, and Stock Exchange, it becomes 5.5 gold/turn. Not bad! (But I didn't really need any more gold at this point - I should have just built the Apollo Program straight away with maximum hammer output.)
178. The final blow on Helsinki. A second CS became history. Ramky did not conquer any of them, but he did bribe the Civs to conquer them. Ramky puppets the world!
179. Ready to drop the second Culture Bomb! Finally, Coal!
(to be continued...)
Yesterday, I read about a forum discussion about how a player's every Deity game ends up playing as an OCC (to avoid being attacked) until Cannon and Artillery, and then use them to expand. It seems that my OCC games show this trend as well, since Cannon was such a superior unit during its time.
Same here. Ramky can use Artilleries (and later Rocket Artilleries) to kick everyone's ass! But I still tried to play my best Science game (which is very boring).
Spoiler :
156. This is a summary of Ramky's World of Industrial - early Modern Era (for Ramky, including late Modern Era and Future Era - that's the end of game!)
Ramky first defeated the most hostile and powerful Elizabeth. Then he came back to dispatch Bismark. Then he moved on to Genghis Khan. The prosperity then belonged solely to the ground of Friends, Egypt, Songhai, China, and Siam.
Ramky could have stopped his war there and had endless warm greetings and chats with his allies. But being the wacky Ramky, he proceeded with a series of briberies to dissolve the group of friends (Egypt, Songhai, China). Friends betrayed friends. They started denouncing each other. One after one, they got isolated. Then Ramky punished them in the name of Justice. It was too late when Wu Zetian realized that she was the only one standing in Ramky's path of Domination Victory.
It was a pretty classic evil warmonger's path to conquer the world.
But Ramky still played his Science game in the background! I will try to cover more about Science and less about how Artillery kicks ass.Spoiler :
157. Well, I got a new record! The second war with England became my most profitable war - 6364 gold! And Elizabeth still had 10k left!
I often read that people feel guilty about taking Deity AI's ungodly amount of gold before war. I totally agree. I find it hard to draw the line, though. Can I force AI to sign an unequal peace treaty, and take a ungodly amount of gold? Can I bribe AI to throw away 10K worth of army with 0.1K gold?
I have full respects for players who handicap themselves following a spotless morality. For me, I just want to find some fun in a game. I think exploiting AI is actually quite fun in the first few times! And especially if I am the one who find the exploit!
Spoiler :
158. So what does Ramky do with that kind of money? RA seems to be a great idea. Ramky already signed RA with Egypt and Mongol. China and Songhai was not wealthy enough.
No worries. Ramky is here with a very favorable loan. Now you have enough gold to sign the next RA with Ramky.
Spoiler :
159. Same loan here. Signed the RA#14 with Songhai. I would do that to Suleiman, too. But I didn't expect him to survive for more than 90 turns. (And he didn't.)
Spoiler :
160. Ramky's army came back to North America, this time with a Great General! Two Artilleries are more than enough to water down a small town with defense of 20, even in front of defending Longbows.
Spoiler :
161. Ramky had researched all prerequisites of Rocketry, which unlocks Apollo Program. Then Ramky proceeded on the upper-middle route to enable all spaceship parts. As I discussed before, I should have researched the lower route to unlock Nuclear Power Plant first to boost production, since I ended up having a long line up of Spaceship Parts to build.
Spoiler :
163. (There is no 162. I accidentally skipped it in picture numbering.) The Louvre! 2 free G-Art to bomb!
Spoiler :
164. Ah this is too good to miss. A range-4 Artillery takes out one range-3 Longbow per shot. Nice!
Spoiler :
165. With all that godly gold from Elizabeth, Ramky bought over CS Belgrade (military) in West Africa. They have Aluminum; Ramky does not! But the CS worker was converting that tile from a mine to a farm... but soon it was converted to a mine from a farm. Then soon it was converted to a farm from a mine. What is the CS thinking? Is that how it balance food and hammer?
Spoiler :
166. This is the bomb plan. As soon as CS Kuala Lumpur is conquered and retaken by Ramky's army, Bomb #1 will be dropped at B1 to get the Gold. Then 10 turns later, Bomb #2 will be dropped at B2 to get Coal and Cotton from Bismark (as a bonus).
Spoiler :
167. Ramky was so far ahead in technology. Maybe he should just press the "I win" bottom.
Well, there are still many things for me to learn in late game.Spoiler :
168. Ramky actually ran out of meaningful things to build, so he started building Barracks, Heroic Epic, etc. He will need to rush some units soon, as he had no army nearby to retake Kuala Lumpur. (His army was again in North America.)
Spoiler :
169. Since Ramky got so rich so easily, I got really careless. I rushed probably one of the worst buildings in the game - Military Academy. It was so expensive and offer so little advantage. I was deeply attracted by its description - +15 XP for all land units. That's nice! The Artilleries in North America could use that boost to get the godly Range + 1 and Attack +1 sooner.
And it turned out that the +15 XP only applies to new units from the city... just like Barrack and Armory. I should have just bought the Armory for the SAME effect and 720 gold cheaper. I threw away 720 gold just like that and I didn't even bother loading the autosave!
Spoiler :
170. In terms of real military, I rushed Artillery and an Infantry. I hoped that should be enough to retake Kuala Lumpur.
And indeed, they were enough.
Spoiler :
171. Kuala Lumpur, loyal friend of Ramky, fell into the hand of Bismark - everything happened according Ramky's plan.
There was no way for Ramky to liberate it back, since Ramky was on OCC. I think I will never do another OCC game, since it takes away the fun of liberating City States or other AI Civs. I can always do an OCC without the OCC setting.
Spoiler :
172. And the same turn saw the fall of London! The Artilleries fired from far away. London had no chance at all. First capital down!
Spoiler :
173. Immediately got denounced by Suleiman. He was the public enemy of the name, and had denouncement every single Civ that declared war on him - and that's almost everybody. I doubt anyone would take his denouncement seriously.
Spoiler :
174. War was declared on Bismark (too bad Ramky lost that awesome income). Under to cover fire of the Artillery, the Infantry unit gave the final blow to Kuala Lumpur. It is forever gone! The first bomb was dropped immediately.
And Ramky sold the Gold immediately.
Spoiler :
175. Finally, Rocketry! It also unlocks Rocket Artillery, the ultimate siege weapon. But Ramky had no Aluminum to upgrade Artillery to Rocket Artillery. He would again have to wait for City States. A long, long wait.
Spoiler :
176. The artillery now receives Logistics (+1 attack). Two 4-Range attacks! That 38 defense on Helsinki is nothing, as long as the Infantry unit can stay there to provide the line of sight.
Spoiler :
177. What does the Apollo Program look like? It turned out Apollo Program is just like a building that needs to be constructed by the city. Although it is not really a "building" building, a "wonder" building, or "unit" building... it does not receive bonuses from any categories. It cannot be rushed by a G-Eng. It took an awful long time to build! Why can a player rush a UN, but not the Apollo Program?
I actually built a Mint in Sukhothai after getting the gold tile. That increases the tile output by 3 gold/turn. After Market, Bank, and Stock Exchange, it becomes 5.5 gold/turn. Not bad! (But I didn't really need any more gold at this point - I should have just built the Apollo Program straight away with maximum hammer output.)
Spoiler :
178. The final blow on Helsinki. A second CS became history. Ramky did not conquer any of them, but he did bribe the Civs to conquer them. Ramky puppets the world!
Spoiler :
179. Ready to drop the second Culture Bomb! Finally, Coal!
(to be continued...)
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 12. Waiting for Aluminum
I feel that Technology Victory is more about determination than victory. If a player wants to win as soon as possible, he or she can simply rush to Domination or Diplomatic victory hundreds of years earlier. Technology and Culture Victory is about purposely avoiding the army and technology for Domination and Diplomatic Victory. So the victory itself is a lot less exciting. I guess the player can uncheck the options for domination and diplomatic victory, but that pretty much eliminates AI's hope to win.
180. As soon as the second Culture Bomb was dropped, the Worker got to the Coal tile and started converting the useless Trading Post to Mine. Pyramid turns out to be a pretty good wonder in late game. New strategic resources will become available to the owner quite a few turns earlier. If Ramky had any Iron, Coal, Oil, or Aluminum...
181. A new unit from CS Belgrade! What are they giving us? A Paratrooper? I read that people like this unit since they can jump around thus avoiding getting killed. After playing with it in this game, I find this unit to be really useless:
(1) Paratrooper cannot jump around in enemy territory, which is the only place they can get killed. (Getting killed in friendly territory means there is something wrong with the player's strategy...)
(2) Paratrooper is weak. Strength 40 is a lot less compared to standard Mechanized Infantry (50). It can get killed by even Cannons very quickly.
I guess they can be used as suicide shock troops that flies in to quickly accomplish a mission (such as taking down a weakened city).
182. As Elizabeth had lost her capital and quite a few cities, I had no more intention to fight here. And since she was still very rich, Ramky could sign an RA with her! It turned out that's the last useful RA Ramky signed in this game.
And Elizabeth denounced Ramky on the next turn. Probably not because of the RA, but because of Elizabeth’s AI personality – she just loves to denounce others. In this game, she ended up denouncing everybody else (7 Civs). The opposite was Genghis Khan, who only denounced one (Suleiman). A woman with mouth and a man with actions.
183. Suleiman lost his capital to Egypt after Egypt fielded Cannon. So it is not just that players are turning their game around with Cannons, but AIs as well.
184. Ramky got the 3rd GP from City States, a G-Sci that was used to rush Satellites. I thought I would need 150 turns for the next free GP, but it only took 115 turns, slightly longer than the second free GP (103 turns). I guess I can assume that the next GP will come about 125 turns later. I didn't see that, because the game ended before 125 turns later.
185. I purposely delayed the Scientific Revolution policy in order to receive 2 slightly better policies, Computers and Robotics. Robotics is really nice, for it enables Spaceship Factory. This building gives 50% production boost while building Spaceship Parts, but it requires 1 Aluminum.
Ramky was still waiting for City States to discover their Aluminum and pass it to Ramky...
186. Ramky sold his Open Border to everyone, so occasionally there are traffic passing through Sukhothai. I hope he can charge more for the wonder tour.
Here comes a Songhai Settler unit... I know AI settlers are ultra-aggressive, but are they going to settle on THAT TILE? It turned out that they popped a city in an island a few tiles south.
187. Still waiting for Aluminum.
Edited: I misread this picture and wrote a paragraph that should have appeared in the next chapter.
188. Sukhothai's 8th GP was a G-Sci. Rushed Globalization, now just a prerequisite tech for more Spaceship Parts.
189. Bismark's capital couldn't even see where the missiles came from. That was easy.
190. Ramky skipped Songhai, who was immediately beside Bismark, because there was an RA ending in 30+ turns. Genghis Khan is next! I guess at this stage, it is no longer necessary to wear down the target in wars before our own invasion. Just my old habit.
191. Sukhothai got its 9th GP - a G-Eng. I didn't really know what to rush at this stage, since nothing available at this stage could further increase Ramky's production. (There will be some later on, but Ramky could simply buy them.) So I picked the most expensive wonder, the Pentagon. Reducing gold of upgrade by 50% is quite nice, since I will be upgrade the Artilleries into Rocket Artilleries later. (I missed out the Infantry to Mechanized Infantry upgrade.) However, since gold is so abundant in a military end game, saving gold is not really meaningful. Maybe I should have burned the G-Eng to give some more hammer...
192. It turned out that Songhai and Mongolia couldn't fight each other on a large scale, since their territory was nicely separated by CS Seoul in the middle. CS Seoul had a lot of units, a little too many for Ramky's army to pass. So Ramky bribed Genghis Khan to war CS Seoul. Quite an expensive war gold for a warmonger Civ.
193. While Genghis Khan fielded Musketman, CS Seoul had floods of Rifleman! Such a shame that a Civ was out-teched by CS. Perhaps the CS's technology is calculated from the world average, so Ramky's advance made CSs tougher than their Civ leaders.
While Ramky's army awaits war in position (6 more turns till RA with Mongolia is completed), Egypt had completed destroyed Ottoman and became the new score leader. Ramey2 was gathering a large army at his border. Ramky can't wait to fight that army with his own!
194. 3 more turns to war! Ramky's army then consisted of 3 Artilleries, 2 Mechanized Infantry, and 1 Paratrooper.
Songhai actually killed a few Mongolian units and completed CS Seoul's "kill a few Mongolian units" mission and replaced Ramky as the City State's new ally.
195. This is the last screenshot about research I have, since everything from here was very linear. Among 16 Modern Era technology, Ramky completed 50% of them with RA and G-Sci, while researched the other half himself.
Like I mentioned, I should have seriously delayed Ecology, Globalization and Satellites to get to Nuclear Fission faster, so I could discover Uranium a lot earlier and build the Nuclear Plant to give 25% production boost in Sukhothai (overall about 11% boost). I could have launched the Spaceship 10+ turns earlier if I did that.
196. While Ramky sent his bored Worker around to build useless Forts on the outer rim of his Empire, he noticed that Bismark's former capital had been repopulated... by Askia! Shame on Bismark to allow his neighbor to pop a puny city in his former glorious capital. That's a huge insult.
197. Ramky's 12th RA brought Nanotechnology - Future Era!
(to be continued...)
I feel that Technology Victory is more about determination than victory. If a player wants to win as soon as possible, he or she can simply rush to Domination or Diplomatic victory hundreds of years earlier. Technology and Culture Victory is about purposely avoiding the army and technology for Domination and Diplomatic Victory. So the victory itself is a lot less exciting. I guess the player can uncheck the options for domination and diplomatic victory, but that pretty much eliminates AI's hope to win.
Spoiler :
180. As soon as the second Culture Bomb was dropped, the Worker got to the Coal tile and started converting the useless Trading Post to Mine. Pyramid turns out to be a pretty good wonder in late game. New strategic resources will become available to the owner quite a few turns earlier. If Ramky had any Iron, Coal, Oil, or Aluminum...
Spoiler :
181. A new unit from CS Belgrade! What are they giving us? A Paratrooper? I read that people like this unit since they can jump around thus avoiding getting killed. After playing with it in this game, I find this unit to be really useless:
(1) Paratrooper cannot jump around in enemy territory, which is the only place they can get killed. (Getting killed in friendly territory means there is something wrong with the player's strategy...)
(2) Paratrooper is weak. Strength 40 is a lot less compared to standard Mechanized Infantry (50). It can get killed by even Cannons very quickly.
I guess they can be used as suicide shock troops that flies in to quickly accomplish a mission (such as taking down a weakened city).
Spoiler :
182. As Elizabeth had lost her capital and quite a few cities, I had no more intention to fight here. And since she was still very rich, Ramky could sign an RA with her! It turned out that's the last useful RA Ramky signed in this game.
And Elizabeth denounced Ramky on the next turn. Probably not because of the RA, but because of Elizabeth’s AI personality – she just loves to denounce others. In this game, she ended up denouncing everybody else (7 Civs). The opposite was Genghis Khan, who only denounced one (Suleiman). A woman with mouth and a man with actions.
Spoiler :
183. Suleiman lost his capital to Egypt after Egypt fielded Cannon. So it is not just that players are turning their game around with Cannons, but AIs as well.
Spoiler :
184. Ramky got the 3rd GP from City States, a G-Sci that was used to rush Satellites. I thought I would need 150 turns for the next free GP, but it only took 115 turns, slightly longer than the second free GP (103 turns). I guess I can assume that the next GP will come about 125 turns later. I didn't see that, because the game ended before 125 turns later.
Spoiler :
185. I purposely delayed the Scientific Revolution policy in order to receive 2 slightly better policies, Computers and Robotics. Robotics is really nice, for it enables Spaceship Factory. This building gives 50% production boost while building Spaceship Parts, but it requires 1 Aluminum.
Ramky was still waiting for City States to discover their Aluminum and pass it to Ramky...
Spoiler :
186. Ramky sold his Open Border to everyone, so occasionally there are traffic passing through Sukhothai. I hope he can charge more for the wonder tour.
Here comes a Songhai Settler unit... I know AI settlers are ultra-aggressive, but are they going to settle on THAT TILE? It turned out that they popped a city in an island a few tiles south.
Spoiler :
187. Still waiting for Aluminum.
Edited: I misread this picture and wrote a paragraph that should have appeared in the next chapter.
Spoiler :
188. Sukhothai's 8th GP was a G-Sci. Rushed Globalization, now just a prerequisite tech for more Spaceship Parts.
Spoiler :
189. Bismark's capital couldn't even see where the missiles came from. That was easy.
Spoiler :
190. Ramky skipped Songhai, who was immediately beside Bismark, because there was an RA ending in 30+ turns. Genghis Khan is next! I guess at this stage, it is no longer necessary to wear down the target in wars before our own invasion. Just my old habit.
Spoiler :
191. Sukhothai got its 9th GP - a G-Eng. I didn't really know what to rush at this stage, since nothing available at this stage could further increase Ramky's production. (There will be some later on, but Ramky could simply buy them.) So I picked the most expensive wonder, the Pentagon. Reducing gold of upgrade by 50% is quite nice, since I will be upgrade the Artilleries into Rocket Artilleries later. (I missed out the Infantry to Mechanized Infantry upgrade.) However, since gold is so abundant in a military end game, saving gold is not really meaningful. Maybe I should have burned the G-Eng to give some more hammer...
Spoiler :
192. It turned out that Songhai and Mongolia couldn't fight each other on a large scale, since their territory was nicely separated by CS Seoul in the middle. CS Seoul had a lot of units, a little too many for Ramky's army to pass. So Ramky bribed Genghis Khan to war CS Seoul. Quite an expensive war gold for a warmonger Civ.
Spoiler :
193. While Genghis Khan fielded Musketman, CS Seoul had floods of Rifleman! Such a shame that a Civ was out-teched by CS. Perhaps the CS's technology is calculated from the world average, so Ramky's advance made CSs tougher than their Civ leaders.
While Ramky's army awaits war in position (6 more turns till RA with Mongolia is completed), Egypt had completed destroyed Ottoman and became the new score leader. Ramey2 was gathering a large army at his border. Ramky can't wait to fight that army with his own!
Spoiler :
194. 3 more turns to war! Ramky's army then consisted of 3 Artilleries, 2 Mechanized Infantry, and 1 Paratrooper.
Songhai actually killed a few Mongolian units and completed CS Seoul's "kill a few Mongolian units" mission and replaced Ramky as the City State's new ally.
Spoiler :
195. This is the last screenshot about research I have, since everything from here was very linear. Among 16 Modern Era technology, Ramky completed 50% of them with RA and G-Sci, while researched the other half himself.
Like I mentioned, I should have seriously delayed Ecology, Globalization and Satellites to get to Nuclear Fission faster, so I could discover Uranium a lot earlier and build the Nuclear Plant to give 25% production boost in Sukhothai (overall about 11% boost). I could have launched the Spaceship 10+ turns earlier if I did that.
Spoiler :
196. While Ramky sent his bored Worker around to build useless Forts on the outer rim of his Empire, he noticed that Bismark's former capital had been repopulated... by Askia! Shame on Bismark to allow his neighbor to pop a puny city in his former glorious capital. That's a huge insult.
Spoiler :
197. Ramky's 12th RA brought Nanotechnology - Future Era!
(to be continued...)
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 13. Opportunistic Empress of China
Almost there! Ramky only needs to focus on production in order to finish the dragging Space Ship Race.
198. Ramky sent his second home-raised Great General to the battlefield. Now he got his third G-Gen - Golden Age!
I added up all Golden Ages in Ramky's game:
1. 1st Happiness (20)
2. Rationalism (8)
3. Taj Mahal (20)
4. 1st G-Gen (16)
5. 2nd Happiness (20)
6. 3rd G-Gen (14)
7. 4th G-Gen (12)
Total: 110 out of about 679 (16%). This ratio is lower than Monty's game. So the longer the game drags, the smaller the role of Golden Age plays... If I got Chichen Itza, I would have received 55 extra turns. That seems to make this wonder worth it, if I used a G-Eng to rush it instead of Angkor Wat, and rushed Angkor Wat instead of Himeji Castle... etc.
199. The Mongolian capital is down! And two Artilleries even didn't have to move. They blasted from half a Europe away!
200. Ramky used 57 turns to build Apollo Program. That was really, really long. And each of the subsequent Spaceship Parts could also take very long - fortunately, there are buildings that boosts the production of Spaceship Parts. I will mention them soon.
201. It took Ramky 600 turns to get 13 policies. I can't imagine how long it is going to take for a Cultural Victory (30 policies). The game must be played very differently...
202. Ramky first asked Askia to join his coming war with Egypt. He actually agreed! At the time Egypt already denounced Songhai, which came immediately after Askia declared war to Genghis Khan (under Ramky's bribe).
I find it quite easy to break up AI's friendship. Just keep bribing one Civ to attack others. And very soon their friend will call them a warmonger and denounce/backstab them. This system is way too stupid and deserves to be abused. I only failed to apply this strategy in my Greek game, when Alexander could never bribe China or India to attack others (both are extremely non-aggressive Civs), thus make them hate each other.
One way to smarten it up the system is to make AI only consider warring behavior in the more recent past. Instead of keeping counts of war declaration from 4000 BC, an AI should only look at the number of wars declared in, say, the last 100 turns on Standard (300 turns in Marathon).
203. So it was time to official betray Ramey2! Ramky had two choices. He could first denounce Ramky2, then declare war, or declare war directly. I am not sure which one is better in terms of maintaining a positive image in Ramky's remaining friends (Songhai and China).
I think the first choice is better, since I later realized that there is a positive relationship modifier "we have denounced the same leader". But in reality it is just the same thing. This is also my first ever denouncement of an AI Civ. Maybe I should use it more often to make AI Civs like me more.
204. While I already dragged Askia to war Ramey2 with Ramky, I was expecting Wu Zetian to denounce Ramky for he denounced her friend. But I was surprised to see that Wu Zetian denounced Ramey2 right away and chose Ramky! That's a very smart choice of you, Empress. Just for that I will leave you to the last on the last.
I think China's interesting choice is based on the fact that:
(1) Egypt just completely conquered Ottoman. Now Egypt is a Civ destroyer.
(2) Egypt just denounced Songhai (bribed by Ramky to war Mongolia). So Egypt got the negative modifier "you denounced your friend!".
(3) Siam just denounced Egypt. Now Egypt gets the negative modifier "your friend found some reason to denounce you!".
(4) Egypt was the top scorer with the largest army.
And these negative factors could overwhelm Siam's sins: declared war on England, Germany, England, Germany, Mongolia. Razed 7-8 cities... that actually sounds pretty bad. Maybe Wu Zetian's AI is smart enough to pick the "weaker" side to bring down the biggest threat in the world.
205. End-game diplomacy is full of red.
Wu Zetian: Denounced 4. 2 were friends.
Ramey2: Denounced 5. 1 was friend.
Elizabeth: Denounced 6. Never had a friend.
206. Uranium was revealed! And Ramky actually has one! It was actually within Egypt's annoying city's harvest radius, but thanks to Angkor Wat, Siam's border got there first. There is also another Uranium 4 tiles northwest of Sukhothai. That tile previously belonged to Germany. Fortunately Ramky razed the city Ankara.
207. The clash of the two strongest armies in the world had started. Egypt had number. Siam had technology. Numbers means nothing in front of smart use of technology, which does not commit suicide. CS Oslo and CS Belgrade also joined the exciting war.
208. Egypt sent a Rifleman to attack the defenseless Sukhothai! But Ramky had so much cash at this point. How about rushing a Mechanized Infantry to mow it down?
209. Belgrade gave Ramky a second unit - an Anti-Aircraft Gun? What is this? I have never seen airplane. I should have given the unit back to the CS right away, since throughout this game the AIs were never able to fly anything. But I didn't know that, and let it accompany the army to travel the world just to flash the muscles.
210. The 14th RA gave Ramky Nanotechnology! But it is just a name that unlocks another Spaceship Part. It should have some serious boost in production and research (which, however, does not matter anymore at this stage, since all necessary techs for Spaceship Parts have been researched!).
211. After signing a peace treaty with Genghis Khan, I signed one RA with him... Didn't expect it to make any difference.
212. After mowing down that Rifleman, Ramky sat the new mechanized infantry on the Uranium tile, so his worker could build the mine without being kidnapped by Egyptians.
The end game was about beating down the score leading one after one. Ramky's score slowly rise from the lowest to the highest, because everybody else had been crippled by Ramky
213. The ultra-aggressive Songhai settler had successfully popped a city right on the ruins of London. Seriously, what a joke! Why didn't Elizabeth come back there 50 turns ago? (Ramky's war with England ended on turn 550+.) Had she given up?
214. And finally here came Aluminum!
Ramky revealed Aluminum on Turn 445 (725 AD), and finally received it on Turn 613 (1436AD). That was 168 turns (711 years) of waiting...
I went back to check Coal. Ramky discovered Coal on Turn 386 (360AD). And he mined it himself after 2 bombs on Turn 558. That's 172 turns of waiting. It probably will take Kuala Lumpur that long to move Worker there and convert the Trading Post to Mine anyway.
So Ramky's decision of letting Kuala Lumpur die isn't so bad after all. (Sorry about the wrong analysis in the previous chapter - I misread that picture. Mistake corrected.)
215. The arrival of Aluminum means Hydro Plant (all riverside tiles +1 hammer)! That boosted Sukhothai's overall production by 30% instantly, thanks to its abundance in riverside tiles.
Also shown in this picture is Arsenal, which I didn't realize I could purchase yet. It speeds up land unit production by 20% (about +11% on overall production). Spaceship Parts are actually land units! (Anything that can move on the land is a land unit.) Arsenal is unlocked by Railroad and, strangely, Military Academy. So my bad decision of rushing Military Academy earlier isn't that bad - or I would have missed the chance to learn the existence of Arsenal.
216. And Ramky could purchase Spaceship Factory, too. That's another 30% boost on overall production! Ramky was so rich that he could afford to rush everything except Spaceship Parts, which the game prohibits from rushing.
(to be continued...)
Almost there! Ramky only needs to focus on production in order to finish the dragging Space Ship Race.
Spoiler :
198. Ramky sent his second home-raised Great General to the battlefield. Now he got his third G-Gen - Golden Age!
I added up all Golden Ages in Ramky's game:
1. 1st Happiness (20)
2. Rationalism (8)
3. Taj Mahal (20)
4. 1st G-Gen (16)
5. 2nd Happiness (20)
6. 3rd G-Gen (14)
7. 4th G-Gen (12)
Total: 110 out of about 679 (16%). This ratio is lower than Monty's game. So the longer the game drags, the smaller the role of Golden Age plays... If I got Chichen Itza, I would have received 55 extra turns. That seems to make this wonder worth it, if I used a G-Eng to rush it instead of Angkor Wat, and rushed Angkor Wat instead of Himeji Castle... etc.
Spoiler :
199. The Mongolian capital is down! And two Artilleries even didn't have to move. They blasted from half a Europe away!
Spoiler :
200. Ramky used 57 turns to build Apollo Program. That was really, really long. And each of the subsequent Spaceship Parts could also take very long - fortunately, there are buildings that boosts the production of Spaceship Parts. I will mention them soon.
Spoiler :
201. It took Ramky 600 turns to get 13 policies. I can't imagine how long it is going to take for a Cultural Victory (30 policies). The game must be played very differently...
Spoiler :
202. Ramky first asked Askia to join his coming war with Egypt. He actually agreed! At the time Egypt already denounced Songhai, which came immediately after Askia declared war to Genghis Khan (under Ramky's bribe).
I find it quite easy to break up AI's friendship. Just keep bribing one Civ to attack others. And very soon their friend will call them a warmonger and denounce/backstab them. This system is way too stupid and deserves to be abused. I only failed to apply this strategy in my Greek game, when Alexander could never bribe China or India to attack others (both are extremely non-aggressive Civs), thus make them hate each other.
One way to smarten it up the system is to make AI only consider warring behavior in the more recent past. Instead of keeping counts of war declaration from 4000 BC, an AI should only look at the number of wars declared in, say, the last 100 turns on Standard (300 turns in Marathon).
Spoiler :
203. So it was time to official betray Ramey2! Ramky had two choices. He could first denounce Ramky2, then declare war, or declare war directly. I am not sure which one is better in terms of maintaining a positive image in Ramky's remaining friends (Songhai and China).
I think the first choice is better, since I later realized that there is a positive relationship modifier "we have denounced the same leader". But in reality it is just the same thing. This is also my first ever denouncement of an AI Civ. Maybe I should use it more often to make AI Civs like me more.
Spoiler :
204. While I already dragged Askia to war Ramey2 with Ramky, I was expecting Wu Zetian to denounce Ramky for he denounced her friend. But I was surprised to see that Wu Zetian denounced Ramey2 right away and chose Ramky! That's a very smart choice of you, Empress. Just for that I will leave you to the last on the last.
I think China's interesting choice is based on the fact that:
(1) Egypt just completely conquered Ottoman. Now Egypt is a Civ destroyer.
(2) Egypt just denounced Songhai (bribed by Ramky to war Mongolia). So Egypt got the negative modifier "you denounced your friend!".
(3) Siam just denounced Egypt. Now Egypt gets the negative modifier "your friend found some reason to denounce you!".
(4) Egypt was the top scorer with the largest army.
And these negative factors could overwhelm Siam's sins: declared war on England, Germany, England, Germany, Mongolia. Razed 7-8 cities... that actually sounds pretty bad.
Maybe Wu Zetian's AI is smart enough to pick the "weaker" side to bring down the biggest threat in the world.Spoiler :
205. End-game diplomacy is full of red.
Wu Zetian: Denounced 4. 2 were friends.
Ramey2: Denounced 5. 1 was friend.
Elizabeth: Denounced 6. Never had a friend.
Spoiler :
206. Uranium was revealed! And Ramky actually has one! It was actually within Egypt's annoying city's harvest radius, but thanks to Angkor Wat, Siam's border got there first.
There is also another Uranium 4 tiles northwest of Sukhothai. That tile previously belonged to Germany. Fortunately Ramky razed the city Ankara.Spoiler :
207. The clash of the two strongest armies in the world had started. Egypt had number. Siam had technology. Numbers means nothing in front of smart use of technology, which does not commit suicide. CS Oslo and CS Belgrade also joined the exciting war.
Spoiler :
208. Egypt sent a Rifleman to attack the defenseless Sukhothai! But Ramky had so much cash at this point. How about rushing a Mechanized Infantry to mow it down?
Spoiler :
209. Belgrade gave Ramky a second unit - an Anti-Aircraft Gun? What is this? I have never seen airplane. I should have given the unit back to the CS right away, since throughout this game the AIs were never able to fly anything. But I didn't know that, and let it accompany the army to travel the world just to flash the muscles.
Spoiler :
210. The 14th RA gave Ramky Nanotechnology! But it is just a name that unlocks another Spaceship Part. It should have some serious boost in production and research (which, however, does not matter anymore at this stage, since all necessary techs for Spaceship Parts have been researched!).
Spoiler :
211. After signing a peace treaty with Genghis Khan, I signed one RA with him... Didn't expect it to make any difference.
Spoiler :
212. After mowing down that Rifleman, Ramky sat the new mechanized infantry on the Uranium tile, so his worker could build the mine without being kidnapped by Egyptians.
The end game was about beating down the score leading one after one. Ramky's score slowly rise from the lowest to the highest, because everybody else had been crippled by Ramky
Spoiler :
213. The ultra-aggressive Songhai settler had successfully popped a city right on the ruins of London. Seriously, what a joke! Why didn't Elizabeth come back there 50 turns ago? (Ramky's war with England ended on turn 550+.) Had she given up?
Spoiler :
214. And finally here came Aluminum!
Ramky revealed Aluminum on Turn 445 (725 AD), and finally received it on Turn 613 (1436AD). That was 168 turns (711 years) of waiting...
I went back to check Coal. Ramky discovered Coal on Turn 386 (360AD). And he mined it himself after 2 bombs on Turn 558. That's 172 turns of waiting. It probably will take Kuala Lumpur that long to move Worker there and convert the Trading Post to Mine anyway.
So Ramky's decision of letting Kuala Lumpur die isn't so bad after all. (Sorry about the wrong analysis in the previous chapter - I misread that picture. Mistake corrected.)
Spoiler :
215. The arrival of Aluminum means Hydro Plant (all riverside tiles +1 hammer)! That boosted Sukhothai's overall production by 30% instantly, thanks to its abundance in riverside tiles.
Also shown in this picture is Arsenal, which I didn't realize I could purchase yet. It speeds up land unit production by 20% (about +11% on overall production). Spaceship Parts are actually land units! (Anything that can move on the land is a land unit.) Arsenal is unlocked by Railroad and, strangely, Military Academy. So my bad decision of rushing Military Academy earlier isn't that bad - or I would have missed the chance to learn the existence of Arsenal.
Spoiler :
216. And Ramky could purchase Spaceship Factory, too. That's another 30% boost on overall production! Ramky was so rich that he could afford to rush everything except Spaceship Parts, which the game prohibits from rushing.
(to be continued...)
maltz
King
- Joined
- Jan 24, 2006
- Messages
- 967
Chapter 14. Science Loses
Thanks to Coal, Aluminum and some new knowledge about never-noticed buildings, Ramky got a series of serious production bonuses from Factory, Hydro Plant, Spaceship Factory, Nuclear Plant, and Arsenal. The Space Race has entered its final stage!
217. Got another policy. But there was nothing to increase hammer. So I picked something that looks nice - Autocracy for 33% less unit maintenance. That saved Ramky 9 gold per turn. Late-game unit maintenance was very expensive, since maintenance fee per unit grows exponentially with turn number.
218. The Egyptian capital becomes history! And thanks to the Aluminum, Ramky could upgrade his Artillery to Rocket Artillery. Besides being more powerful, the upgraded version can travel after firing (twice from range 4)! And Ramky has 3 of them! (Although the 3rd was purchased more recently and could attack twice yet.)
219. As mentioned, I hope I had noticed Arsenal sooner. Compared to the mistake in general research sequence, I didn't lose so many turns in ignoring Arsenal - only about 2 turns.
220. Nuclear Plant unlocked! That's the final hammer-boosting building on Ramky's list.
221. It was Askia's turn to lose his capital last. And my old habit is to break up all friendships of Ramky's enemy. Surprisingly, Askia never agreed to declare war on Wu Zetian, but Wu Zetian agreed to declare war on Askia (although the price was very high).
So Askia is an extremely reliable friend on Civ5? His diplomatic background could be very misleading.
222. War on Songhai! The line of Rocket Artillery destroyed everything that comes into range. Actually the only thing that limits their range was visibility. Ramky had to move forward some Mechanized Infantry in order to show them where to fire.
223. Finally China's denouncement came. It was too late, for she too had betrayed her last friend. From now on everybody is an enemy of everybody. The end of the world is near!
224. The last attack on Songhai capital GAO. At the beginning, I thought Songhai was chronic underachiever. After this game, I still think it is weak, but at least Songhai was as aggressive as England in terms expanding, popping cities in ruins of other's capitals. Songhai also completely beat Bismark to setup cities in northeastern Asia.
225. I was amused to see the comeback of London. Since the old London was replaced by some bold Songhai city, the new London had a close, but much inferior location.
226. With a production 202.8 hammer per turn, Sukhothai entered a Spaceship Parts building frenzy! I could bump that hammer count from 202 to 208 if I move 2 citizens to Merchant Specialists. But it couldn't save me any turn.
227. In the meantime, Ramky's army landed in South America and took down Beijing. That 54 defense was nothing in front of 5 rockets per turn! Domination Victory won again! (By 32 turns!) But I will just come back to finish the Science Victory.
228. Even with a full tech tree, a lot of wonders, a lot of population, Ramky's score was very low. Seriously, the game developers should fix this. That's ridiculous.
229. Loaded a save to spare Beijing from destruction. Several turns later, CS Belgrade gave Ramky another Rocket Artillery. Ramky gave it right back for he did not need any military anymore.
I also looked at the turn number of free military units. It follows a very similar pattern with free GP from City States. The second and subsequent free units/GP take about twice as long as the first one. But the wait does not increase. So free GPs and units from CS actually becomes relatively frequent when the game drags long.
230. The 10th and the last GP produced by Sukhothai. There was no tech to rush other than the useless Future Tech! What a trash tech... I like the classic quote, though.
After the 1st GP, each new one takes in average 45 turns to produce. This is much better than free GPs from city states, which in average takes every 114 turns after the first one.
231. Just before the launch of Spaceship, Ramky got one more policy point where I don't know where to put.
232. And here goes the spaceship! Ramky had all his units lining up in the border to watch the launch countdown. 3…2…1…BOOM! Yeah!
233. So this was my first Science victory. I think Technology victory is only an extended version of a Diplomatic victory. In both victories, the player rushes research to get to the required technology for UN/Spaceship Parts as soon as possible. So there was nothing really new, except some new units to abuse the AI opponents in the latter. I never bothered trying flights and helicopters, since what I had was more than enough to kick everyone's ass.
"I will have seen the Science victory screen!" That’s the only thing to keep me going.
234. The final picture of Sukhothai. I built every single building that increases research and production. There is another G-Eng coming soon. Maybe rush a nuke to drop it on Beijing (which was not destroyed in this version)?
235. The end score was even poorer for the actual Science Victory, with 2 completed future techs! And that was much worse than Monty's game, which was so much easier and simpler compared to this one. I have to learn not to expect any good score from these types of determination victories...
Thanks for reading the story. I hope 200+ pictures of Ramky haven't made you sick of him by the end. Well, there is one more "determination victory" to play - Culture! I hope it is very different from this one.
(the End)
Thanks to Coal, Aluminum and some new knowledge about never-noticed buildings, Ramky got a series of serious production bonuses from Factory, Hydro Plant, Spaceship Factory, Nuclear Plant, and Arsenal. The Space Race has entered its final stage!
Spoiler :
217. Got another policy. But there was nothing to increase hammer. So I picked something that looks nice - Autocracy for 33% less unit maintenance. That saved Ramky 9 gold per turn. Late-game unit maintenance was very expensive, since maintenance fee per unit grows exponentially with turn number.
Spoiler :
218. The Egyptian capital becomes history! And thanks to the Aluminum, Ramky could upgrade his Artillery to Rocket Artillery. Besides being more powerful, the upgraded version can travel after firing (twice from range 4)! And Ramky has 3 of them! (Although the 3rd was purchased more recently and could attack twice yet.)
Spoiler :
219. As mentioned, I hope I had noticed Arsenal sooner. Compared to the mistake in general research sequence, I didn't lose so many turns in ignoring Arsenal - only about 2 turns.
Spoiler :
220. Nuclear Plant unlocked! That's the final hammer-boosting building on Ramky's list.
Spoiler :
221. It was Askia's turn to lose his capital last. And my old habit is to break up all friendships of Ramky's enemy. Surprisingly, Askia never agreed to declare war on Wu Zetian, but Wu Zetian agreed to declare war on Askia (although the price was very high).
So Askia is an extremely reliable friend on Civ5? His diplomatic background could be very misleading.
Spoiler :
222. War on Songhai! The line of Rocket Artillery destroyed everything that comes into range. Actually the only thing that limits their range was visibility. Ramky had to move forward some Mechanized Infantry in order to show them where to fire.
Spoiler :
223. Finally China's denouncement came. It was too late, for she too had betrayed her last friend. From now on everybody is an enemy of everybody. The end of the world is near!
Spoiler :
224. The last attack on Songhai capital GAO. At the beginning, I thought Songhai was chronic underachiever. After this game, I still think it is weak, but at least Songhai was as aggressive as England in terms expanding, popping cities in ruins of other's capitals. Songhai also completely beat Bismark to setup cities in northeastern Asia.
Spoiler :
225. I was amused to see the comeback of London. Since the old London was replaced by some bold Songhai city, the new London had a close, but much inferior location.
Spoiler :
226. With a production 202.8 hammer per turn, Sukhothai entered a Spaceship Parts building frenzy! I could bump that hammer count from 202 to 208 if I move 2 citizens to Merchant Specialists. But it couldn't save me any turn.
Spoiler :
227. In the meantime, Ramky's army landed in South America and took down Beijing. That 54 defense was nothing in front of 5 rockets per turn! Domination Victory won again! (By 32 turns!) But I will just come back to finish the Science Victory.
Spoiler :
228. Even with a full tech tree, a lot of wonders, a lot of population, Ramky's score was very low. Seriously, the game developers should fix this. That's ridiculous.
Spoiler :
229. Loaded a save to spare Beijing from destruction. Several turns later, CS Belgrade gave Ramky another Rocket Artillery. Ramky gave it right back for he did not need any military anymore.
I also looked at the turn number of free military units. It follows a very similar pattern with free GP from City States. The second and subsequent free units/GP take about twice as long as the first one. But the wait does not increase. So free GPs and units from CS actually becomes relatively frequent when the game drags long.
Spoiler :
230. The 10th and the last GP produced by Sukhothai. There was no tech to rush other than the useless Future Tech! What a trash tech... I like the classic quote, though.
After the 1st GP, each new one takes in average 45 turns to produce. This is much better than free GPs from city states, which in average takes every 114 turns after the first one.
Spoiler :
231. Just before the launch of Spaceship, Ramky got one more policy point where I don't know where to put.
Spoiler :
232. And here goes the spaceship! Ramky had all his units lining up in the border to watch the launch countdown. 3…2…1…BOOM! Yeah!
Spoiler :
233. So this was my first Science victory. I think Technology victory is only an extended version of a Diplomatic victory. In both victories, the player rushes research to get to the required technology for UN/Spaceship Parts as soon as possible. So there was nothing really new, except some new units to abuse the AI opponents in the latter. I never bothered trying flights and helicopters, since what I had was more than enough to kick everyone's ass.
"I will have seen the Science victory screen!" That’s the only thing to keep me going.
Spoiler :
234. The final picture of Sukhothai. I built every single building that increases research and production. There is another G-Eng coming soon. Maybe rush a nuke to drop it on Beijing (which was not destroyed in this version)?
Spoiler :
235. The end score was even poorer for the actual Science Victory, with 2 completed future techs! And that was much worse than Monty's game, which was so much easier and simpler compared to this one. I have to learn not to expect any good score from these types of determination victories...
Thanks for reading the story. I hope 200+ pictures of Ramky haven't made you sick of him by the end. Well, there is one more "determination victory" to play - Culture! I hope it is very different from this one.
(the End)
Lol I knew you'd have got to domination before science victory!
Oh great leader...you have saw deceit among nations, you have brought ruins to the world...Well, time to pack it up and go to a new planet
Fare warning on culture victory, it's the most boring victory of them all. Sometimes just clicking next turn for hours to watch the culture points fill up...
Oh great leader...you have saw deceit among nations, you have brought ruins to the world...Well, time to pack it up and go to a new planet
Fare warning on culture victory, it's the most boring victory of them all. Sometimes just clicking next turn for hours to watch the culture points fill up...
Unless of course you somehow end up in domination victory. Like always
In marathon it's much simpler to achieve domination if you have even a small science upper hand in military units (high XP of course) since it takes about 50-100 turns and that's not enough for AI to get the tech and upgrade their units. You end up fighting inferior units all the time. In normal (not to mention quick) AI gets the techs and... well, you win all the same since AI doesn't manage their units at all
Civ'ed
I ain't gotta explain a thing
Cool!
You make Deity seem like child's play.
You make Deity seem like child's play.
The scoring is absolute bullocks. Also it's ridiculously easy to edit in the XML files, just open GlobalDefines.xml and search for "Civ 5 Score". One thing you could do is seriously increase the score gained from technology and especially future tech. Personally I like turning score to zero because it doesn't really mean anything. Besides in multiplayer games seeing other players' scores gives out clues you shouldn't get.
Oh, and a Great Engineer on marathon pace gives 900
+ 90 * 
. With 21 that's 2,790 .
And true, domination is a lot easier in marathon pace. You get to accumulate experience, and you aren't going to upgrade your units constantly every 10 turns.
Oh, and a Great Engineer on marathon pace gives 900
+ 90 * . With 21 that's 2,790 .And true, domination is a lot easier in marathon pace. You get to accumulate experience, and you aren't going to upgrade your units constantly every 10 turns.
Civ'ed
I ain't gotta explain a thing
It seems the game gives you a penalty for playing as a Pacifist.
