Washington (IC) Immortal Cookbook

[lymond]

Lymond: No war so far, lost the rice because you put the Sugar/Rice city on the hill (poor hammer city as a result, too). Decent tech position, with a good shot at getting Lib. Challenging diplomatic situation, with Monty and Gilg at war with each other and both sharing Judaism with us as state religion.
[.

dr - actually that city site you are criticizing is a very logical choice - or I don't settle a city at all. It was the last city I settled this round and settling closer to Gilg would likely result in a culture flip. The city is very viable as a decent food city (also grabs the lake farm and will be much better once we take out Gilg. I don't consider that I lost the rice but rather put myself in a position to gain the rice.

 

[drlake]

dr - actually that city site you are criticizing is a very logical choice - or I don't settle a city at all. It was the last city I settled this round and settling closer to Gilg would likely result in a culture flip. The city is very viable as a decent food city (also grabs the lake farm and will be much better once we take out Gilg. I don't consider that I lost the rice but rather put myself in a position to gain the rice.

Fair enough. I favored 1E of where you put it. A couple of our compatriots managed to put it in that position instead of on the hill, and didn't lose it to culture.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I also realized something while I was thinking about this, which is that the turn sets are too long for me to really figure out what I'm doing wrong. When I look at what you guys did in the 100 turns since the last save, I'm depressed because of how bad my position looks (compared to most of yours) and because I don't know what I did wrong along the way (for the most part). I'd find it more useful to play shorter sets with more discussion along the way, since I'm obviously missing stuff I could be doing to improve my game.

Even Kossin suggested that playing for 100 Turns was quite a long period of time. Gumbolt, would it be possible to consider playing the next round for only 50 turns?

It might make the game last a little longer, which I suspect could get lame if we play 100 more Turns and then just vote on "which save looks like it would let us win the easiest." If that's the plan, then maybe two smaller rounds would be preferable?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

While I'd still like to see the others submit their games so that they can learn some more, get feedback on their games, and get a chance to vote, I'm going to be busy on the final voting night, so I figure that I'd better stop waiting and just cast my votes now.

Quaren's game = 3 points
I like the Wonders, I like the Forge-based Resources, I like the tech level, and more.

What I like the most about this game is that we are midway through a war, so it will give the more cautious players amongst us a chance to try out their warmongering skills--you're basically being forced to learn how to fight via a trial by fire!

Having a Confucian Apostolic Palace is going to be huge and having The Parthenon will encourage more of us to try out running Specialists in several of our Cities.

Essentially, it is a great save for pushing our envelope of learning beyond Cottage-spam into the realms of war and Specialist-running.

Finally, it seems that Gilgamesh took some land from Bismarck, meaning that we'll get even more Cities overall if and when we finally do finish Gilgamesh off.


BobbyBoy29's game = 2 points
The tech pace is one of the best and you've done a good job securing some of the southern City sites for us.

We have a clear plan of Liberalising Replaceable Parts or possibly Rifling and it's a very achievable plan.

Our Cities are large and we're under our Happiness and Healthiness caps, so our empire is a productive one.

We have some great border-City defence.

The National Epic is almost complete.

And although wars are brewing, it sounds like we won't be the victim and it will be fun to watch the armies fly back and forth while we climb the tech ladder.

We even have access to the Apostolic Palace's Religion in our capital, which means those of us that choose to spread it and use it can do so efficiently and effectively.


GKey's game = 1 point
The game is all but won.

If this save does get picked, as GKey said, we'll want to buy Peace between Bismarck and Gilgamesh immediately, but otherwise, things with the Gilgamesh are under control.

Also, we've still got our Trade Routes to the east and the 2 highest-scoring AIs in the game love us.

It's a bit of a shame that they don't really have much to offer us tech-wise--okay, Pacal does, but Louis is being stingy while he builds Notre Dame--but when they do learn some advanced techs, we'll be able to trade for them at our leisure (except when they are building the relevant Wonders! )!

Also, with several AIs at Friendly levels, the world is at our beck and call. If someone declares war on us, our war allies will be lining up to take a number.

The biggest complaint is that it is almost too easy because he's done such a great job. It's just going to be too easy for us to win from his game, which, if we were playing competitively, would put this game at the top spot, but since we're playing to learn and to take on slightly challenging games, I can't rank it as the top pick. But, it IS the strongest game position!

 

[GKey]

@drlake
You can post thorough walkthrough of your turn with intermediate saves. I think community will gladly express opinions, what could be done better, point on mistakes (if any) etc.
Here my 2 cents: no OR, research Engineering before CS. Engineering gives you faster road moving and trebs, while Civil Service gives you macemen, Bureaucracy and chain irrigation - both economical and military value. Plus its easier to get.

100 turns round makes you able fulfill your plans in chosen direction.
If I was post save from turn 50 you were sure find it challenging enough (bloodbath on south front, desperate tech situation, 1 gold from strike, etc).

Edit: also you could try more aggressive approach, when Gilg was first to rice site - whip galley and settle fur-fish city on Monty's continent, creating base for future invasion on him.

 

[vranasm]

shorter turns would be fine 3-6 months ago, since we make 1 round/week imagine how many weeks would be needed to play 1 game.
CiV is in the world and I will definitely split time (probably wont finish this game, will play exclusively SGOTM 12 on CIV platform and mostly will have my hands in the new shiny we get this week!)

I think making first round 100 turns then the next ones 50 works probably best, since on epic you get to turn 50 and you barely managed to get 1st worker and some techs... that is not enough to differentiate the saves.

 

[drlake]

shorter turns would be fine 3-6 months ago, since we make 1 round/week imagine how many weeks would be needed to play 1 game.
CiV is in the world and I will definitely split time (probably wont finish this game, will play exclusively SGOTM 12 on CIV platform and mostly will have my hands in the new shiny we get this week!)

I think making first round 100 turns then the next ones 50 works probably best, since on epic you get to turn 50 and you barely managed to get 1st worker and some techs... that is not enough to differentiate the saves.

Yeah, I was mostly thinking about the second set of turns (and third), not the first. I'll be getting a new computer within the next week or so, at which time CiV is also calling me, so I may just give up on improving my Civ4 game except for what I pick up from SGOTM 12.

@Gkey
Interesting point about CS vs. Eng. I was going for Eng primarily for Trebs, to carry the war against Gilg, since he put up walls around some of his key cities. Probably not the best decision in retrospect, but it made sense at the time. I wasn't even thinking about Macemen.

However, the fact remains that it is frequently not clear from the turn 200 saves HOW the player got to that point, because so many decisions were made along the way. It would be easier to put it all together if looking at an intermediate save. One particular question is how some of you pulled off pre-cat wars the way you did, though I've gotten a partial answer from Dhoom's posts. It seems like your casualties were way below what I would expect, given the technologies available.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@drlake

You have built a lot of Workshops and are using some of them. However, you're running Slavery. Caste System makes the Workshops stronger, while if you plan to stay in Slavery, putting a Cottage (or even a Farm) on those Plains squares will net you better results, since you're already going to be using your excess Food for your production needs (i.e. whipping) and thus the tiny bit of extra production that you get from a Workshop under Slavery in the early-game is not a great trade-off.

I would tend to pick between:
Slavery + Farms & Cottages & forget about early-game Workshops & some Specialists
OR
Caste System + Farms & fewer Cottages & Workshops & more Specialists in Food-heavy Cities

 

[GKey]

My notes and vote.

Gumbolt
Killing Monty, GLH, CS+Pac is strong!

Lymonds
Peaceful, closest to Lib. (Traded edu for engi to HC?)

Dhoomstriker
Killing Monty. GLH. Bad tech situation.

Drlake
Peaceful. Moai in 9.No OR. Engineering before CS.

Fierabras
Holding invasion, tech not bad

Vranasm
Stable big cities. Good economy, decent tech. No exploration. No metal connected. Seattle good base. Lui at war.

Quaren
Killing Gilg, AP captured, +21 gold KongMiao, Parthenon. No Buro, Unhappiness from defying. Monty advanced.

Bobbyboy29
Research PP not lib. Boston nat Epic in 9 (starving for no reason). No state religion. Running CS without specs.

The first two are no doubt Gumbolt and Quaren.
We got poor land, aggressive neighbors and advanced opponents far away so war is needed. And sooner we go to war is the better.
Quaren successfully fighting Gilg, which is more difficult IMO and got us excellent wonders. This save put us in very strong and interesting position.
Since this is educational thread I chose Gumbolts save as first for economical success during war.
Its tempting to stay in slavery during war and whip whip whip more units. Going into CS+Pacifism during war looks irrelevant at the first glance. On this food rich prod poor map with these advanced opponents CS+Pacifism was excellent move! And Gumbolt proved this.

Some words regarding Dhoomstriker's save: same as the above regarding military success. On current map GLH is best wonder in the game IMO. But ignoring CS-Pacifism approach put us here in very diffcult situation. If we looking for challenge we can pick this save to try find the way to dig us out of technological hole. At least I run out of ideas what can be done in current situation. Space race victory may be possible here, but I don't like this VC.

From peaceful saves I like Vranasm's one most. Keeping good tech pace + getting us good base for future invasion on Monty. Things look promising here.

The votes:


Gumbolt


Quaren


Vranasm

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Bobbyboy29
Research PP not lib.

I think that Bobbyboy29 had a fair point in that with a lot of matured Cottages, Printing Press is a good choice before mostly-completing Liberalism, given the tech lead that he has in the Liberalism race, which gives him a solid lock on getting Liberalism at his leisure.

That said, he could have put 1 turn of Research into Liberalism at a 0% Science Rate to appease the superstitious amongst us.

 

[Gumbolt]

Sorry mind not with it today. Soooo quiet here i could here a pin drop.
Votes so far....

9 Quaren
8 Gkey
5 Gumbolt
5 Bobbyboy29
2 Lymond
1 Vranasm

My votes are 3 pts to Gkey, 2pts to bobbyboy29 and 1pts to quaren.

Final votes are

11 Gkey
10 Quaren
7 Bobbyboy29
5 Gumbolt
2 lymond
1 Vranasm

Overall this makes Gkey the winner of this round. I suspect if Quaren had voted Gkey would of got some points.

So do we play next round to 1100ad or to a later date? I am worried people may be focusing on civ 5 this week.

 

[lymond]

Why does everyone think I trade Edu for Engineering? I had several techs at the time I could trade for it and I put a turn or two of research into it. I would never trade Edu before Lib or at least until I know I secured it. HC teched it or bulbed it in my game.

 

[GKey]

^^^^
Sorry, I suspected you in such a crime .
Now I suspect you been a villain, who does not want vote.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Sorry mind not with it today. Soooo quiet here i could here a pin drop.

That's partially because we kept getting "The server is too busy at the moment. Please try again later." error messages when trying to view the threads or post messages, presumably due to the release date of Civ 5 having been today.

I'm not sure if the forums were really that popular today or if it was more because this web site offered part of the files that you need to download in order to play the game.

Now I suspect you been a villain, who does not want vote.

Yeah, what gives? Where's your vote, Lymond?

And how about Bobbyboy29 and Quaren, for that matter?

So do we play next round to 1100ad or to a later date? I am worried people may be focusing on civ 5 this week.

That would depend upon what Turn in the game 1100 AD works out to be, and how many turnsets after the next one you want to continue the game.

Also, should we be aiming at a particular victory condition soon? Or do we just glaze over that detail and keep playing until we stumble upon a victory?

Honestly, I don't know how these cookbooks work--when are we supposed to talk about pursuing a particular victory condition, or is "domination" the default yet unstated choice?

 

[lymond]

Sorry I missed the vote. Part of it was trying to get this epic BOTM completed in time, CIV5, several other things, and the fact that I sometimes forget the cutoff is earlier than expect with GB.

The servers were obviously crushed with the release of CiV today. By the way, many of yall are not in the US, so here's my take from playing it quite a bit today...in a nutshell:

1) I think I suffer a bit from what I did with CIV4 years ago...an influx of a lot of information. I'm finding it hard to really get into at the moment. Doesn't mean it is not a great game, but there is a lot to get acclimated to. There is much that is very different about this game in almost every respect.

2) UI is pretty cool. Graphics are not actually wow-ing me. It runs rather smooth though.

3) I need the CiV Bug mod badly

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Sorry I missed the vote.

Oh, so it wasn't because you couldn't log on, which would be a potential reason to ask for a vote extension, but it was because you were too busy playing Civ 4 and Civ 5 to log on!

2) UI is pretty cool. Graphics are not actually wow-ing me.

I suppose that graphics aren't everything, but I would have expected a big jump in graphics, so that's a bit disappointing.

It runs rather smooth though.

I'd be interested to see how the game stacks up against Civ 4... say... midgame with a standard-sized map and a standard amount of opponents... how much slower (or faster?) the gameplay becomes. Anyway, consider it something to try out and report back on.



@GKey
Okay, if we're going forwards with GKey's game, then I ask GKey if he has any recommendations for us. Immediately bribing Bismarck to make Peace with Gilgamesh was one such suggestion, before Bismarck vassalizes Gilgamesh. Any other suggestions?

 

[GKey]

Here:
turn 0.
1. We are 2 turns from capturing Kish. You can’t see it from save, but I have scouted area and have found out that city has 0% cultural defense. Must be German stuck with catapults other side of the city which likely will capture it right now. I suggest bribe Bismarck for peace with Gilgamesh this very turn.

2. We got 17 workers. Don’t call me crazy, I made only 1 in addition to 5 we got from Dhoomstriker. Rest was captured from Gilgamesh. And I suspect we will capture more workers soon. Most of them are up north improving Moai city.

3. We have tech trade available. Maya will trade Optics for Paper + Drama. Monti was first to paper (!) so we don’t have monopoly anyway. On the other hand it’s unlikely he will trade it to eastern guys. Up to you. Btw Lui will trade engineering once he finish Notre dam, and he does not have compass, so… you decide.

4. We run HR+Buro+CS+Pacifism civics. Single civic switch will take 2 turns of anarchy.

5. We got Great Scientist sleeping in capital and we got no academies. It’s your call if make one or keep him for other purposes.

6. Washington will finish Nat Epic in 11 turns. Some cities got no defense at all and are close to the point when unhappiness will break in.

7. We got axes that can be upgraded to maces. 197 gold each… Or keep gold for research.

8. That’s all, I think. Good luck!

 

[vranasm]

@lymond

I played yesterday 70 turns of demo of CiV (just for laughs what steam did...here in Europe we have to wait until 24th for real release...sooo I downloaded already around 6gigs of REAL civ and since no one uses brain over the ocean I downloaded another 4gigs of demo to play civ which I already paid!.... I don't get it...considering that in inet traffic the one who uploads pays the bills (that's why you usually get from ISP more download than upload so they can limit the amount of bucks they pay for you) is lol)

graphics are satisfactory for TBS game. I am surprised that it's not so great techwise it's more about artistic style.

the amount of things is a bit overwhelming, I find especially tough to orient myself in important things (like for example citizens on tiles etc)

I don't like some things about UI. It generally has some good things (notifications etc.) But what I find really subpar is the amount of info getting on hand. Especially when I mouse over some objects (like for example units) I would like to know their strength, level. When I mouse over worker I would like to know what he does and how long it will take to finish the job (or is it something I didnt turn on?)!
I loved in CIV to know how many cities the AIs have...not found yet in CiV. The diplo screen is really confusing.
What I really loved is that after enough turns it turned out that Greece was really big competitor and the 2 other AIs (Roman and Germans) started plotting against them, inviting me in party (with Secrecy pacts).
The AIs are very active with city states (Bismarck claimed protectory over 2 city states). When you get some influence with city state you can claim protectorship too btw. It adds to dimension of game. The influence is falling off too quickly for the steep gold investment though

I started on King level from start and it seems I will be able to hold on. Who knows if I could win (since demo is capped I will not find out), but I think at friday I will start play on that level... no reason to go the cheap levels.

Ah and sorry for derailing the topic a bit... I hope no one will get offended.

 

[drlake]

@lymond

I played yesterday 70 turns of demo of CiV (just for laughs what steam did...here in Europe we have to wait until 24th for real release...sooo I downloaded already around 6gigs of REAL civ and since no one uses brain over the ocean I downloaded another 4gigs of demo to play civ which I already paid!.... I don't get it...considering that in inet traffic the one who uploads pays the bills (that's why you usually get from ISP more download than upload so they can limit the amount of bucks they pay for you) is lol)

graphics are satisfactory for TBS game. I am surprised that it's not so great techwise it's more about artistic style.

the amount of things is a bit overwhelming, I find especially tough to orient myself in important things (like for example citizens on tiles etc)

I don't like some things about UI. It generally has some good things (notifications etc.) But what I find really subpar is the amount of info getting on hand. Especially when I mouse over some objects (like for example units) I would like to know their strength, level. When I mouse over worker I would like to know what he does and how long it will take to finish the job (or is it something I didnt turn on?)!
I loved in CIV to know how many cities the AIs have...not found yet in CiV. The diplo screen is really confusing.
What I really loved is that after enough turns it turned out that Greece was really big competitor and the 2 other AIs (Roman and Germans) started plotting against them, inviting me in party (with Secrecy pacts).
The AIs are very active with city states (Bismarck claimed protectory over 2 city states). When you get some influence with city state you can claim protectorship too btw. It adds to dimension of game. The influence is falling off too quickly for the steep gold investment though

I started on King level from start and it seems I will be able to hold on. Who knows if I could win (since demo is capped I will not find out), but I think at friday I will start play on that level... no reason to go the cheap levels.

Ah and sorry for derailing the topic a bit... I hope no one will get offended.

No offense taken here.

I'm a week or less away from a new computer (it's ordered) that isn't minimum specs like my current one (centrino duo laptop with 2GB Ram > i7 quad 1.6GHz with 4 GB Ram, faster vid (of course), faster HDD laptop). Once I have it, I'll be getting CiV to play but I'll keep doing both since they sound very different. Heh, I just switched from Civ III to IV this past January!

 

[lymond]

Yeah V - The diplo aspect is really the most confusing thing. The amount of info is very different. I believe I watch or read some preview stating that the intent was to make diplo more subtle than in Civ4. It will take some time getting used to.

Ha dr - yeah...centrinos weren't made for gaming that's for sure

Hey GB - when we gettin' this round started?