Washington (IC) Immortal Cookbook

[Dhoomstriker]

Does anyone need more time?

I'm not sure. I'm not quite done yet, but I also don't know when the deadline is supposed to be. I couldn't find a message of yours that stated a targeted real-life finish date.

 

[Fierabras]

@Dhoomstriker

I believe Gumbolt had set the date for 26th september.

@Fierabras

Spoiler :

He also demanded Education from us, which I was more than happy to give to him, since it meant a guaranteed 10-turn time period where Monte would not be allowed to attack us. Doing so also gave us +1 positive Diplo relations and brought us up from Annoyed to Cautious with him, meaning that we have the opportunity to bribe him into a war.

Spoiler :

Monty made the same demand for Education, but I did not give it. It seems that not giving away techs is my problem. It already caused 2 wars against me (Pacal in the 400 AD save and this 1200 AD save).

I thought switching to Free Religion would please Monty, but I think it doesn't work that way.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I believe Gumbolt had set the date for 26th september.

In that case, I'll need an extension. I can try my best to finish my game within approximately 24 hours from this message.


@Fierabras

Spoiler :

Monty made the same demand for Education, but I did not give it. It seems that not giving away techs is my problem. It already caused 2 wars against me (Pacal in the 400 AD save and this 1200 AD save).

I thought switching to Free Religion would please Monty, but I think it doesn't work that way.

Up to a point, Free Religion could help--it would probably be sufficient to bring Monte to Cautious from Annoyed. However, that situation would just REDUCE the chance of you being the war target. Monte will still "roll the dice" on each turn to see if he wanted to go to war against you--he'd just be slightly less willing to do so.

Being Annoyed with you just means that if Monte wants to go to war with you, he'll choose to do so. If he's Cautious with you, there is a 30% chance that he'll let bygones be bygones and will decide not to attack you afterall, even if the "dice roll" said "attack that Washington jerk."

If you get Monte to Friendly, then he won't be able to attack you at all.


However, when you refuse a Demand, many AIs will start to plan a "Sneak Attack." A couple of "honourable" AIs will declare immediately, but basically, if you refuse a Demand and you don't have insanely big Power, you should expect to be attacked.

You won't always get attacked, but if you PLAN for such an occurrence, you'll at least be ready for it when it does happen.


To me, if an AI is not the tech leader, I tend to give into their Demands. It's a great way to get free positive Diplo modifiers, although you should have an idea of what the Worst Enemy situation is like--giving into the Demands of someone else's Worst Enemy could anger the person who dislikes the AI that made the Demand in the case where you give into the Demand.

In that situation, you have to weigh the risk of being attacked immediately or in the very near future by the AI making the Demand versus angering the AI that really hates the AI making the Demand.


Also, consider that if you don't want Monte to attack you, you want to INCREASE your relationship with him, instead of souring it. Refusing his Demand makes the relationship go relatively 2 points in the wrong direction (you missed out on the You Gave us Tribute or the You Gave us Help +1 positive Diplo modifier and you also incurred a -1 negative Diplo modifier for Refusing the Demand).

So, if you go around Refusing Demands and Refusing Requests for Help, then you're not really on the right path towards getting said AI to a Friendly status.


In this game, the decision was easy--Monte is behind technologically so he has nothing to offer in trade. Thus, we won't "lose out" on a potential trade by giving him a tech "for free." However, remember that it is NOT "for free." He actually GIVES you a +1 Diplo modifier and DOES NOT GIVE you a -1 Diplo modifier, which is essentially an easy way for you to be +2 Diplo modifiers ahead of the player that refused the Demand.

Sometimes I will refuse a tech Demand from the tech leader if I want to trade them that tech within a couple of turns, since by the very fact that they are the tech leader, they are probably focusing more on their economy and less on a military and thus are less likely to attack you. Trading with them shortly thereafter will also tend to make them like you a bit more (either a potential increase in relations or else a temporary hidden value of "you traded with us within the last 5 turns, so we're going to ignore that 'dice roll' that told us to make a Demand from you"). Note that that last bit about a recent trade is more anecdotal than code-digging based info--there IS a value in the code that "remembers" a recent tech trade, but I am just using anecdotal evidence in my claim as to how that value actually gets applied.

 

[GKey]

Can't wait to see more saves. This lib race round is one of most interesting ones.
Reading, shadowing this thread from last SGOTM winners meanwhile. This is just amazing. Most educational thread I've found on Civfanatics so far. Will I ever reach such a level of playing?

 

[kossin]

^^ Bah! Those guys just quack and do nothing else!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Turn 265 (1200 AD)

Spoiler :

In a rather anti-climactic message, I feel that I've already said a lot about my game, so I'll just summarize the current situation.


Bismarck is dead. He died on this turn and we captured the last of his Cities. I thought about razing some of them, but the eastern one on the Iron (Essen) came with a couple of buildings and Cottages, the southern one on the Copper by the Fur (Phrygian) came with a settled Great Engineer, and the Marble + Copper site (Stuttgart) will be an okay marginal City with those Resources for production, a few population points to start off with, Hinduism already in the City, and a couple of basic buildings to get it going.


I apologise, but the status of the saved game shows War Weariness that is now gone... but it won't disappear until next turn, so several Cities will appear like they are unhappy when in a turn none of them should be unhappy, since we have plenty of Happiness to go around.


We now have Steel (and just over a dozen highly-promoted Cannons) and will get Biology in roughly 13 turns.


We also have a few more Great Generals running around (I generated 3 more during this last turnset and they all joined units).


We are building The Statue of Liberty (2 turns to go) and The Kremlin (5 turns to go). Since Louis and Pacal decided to be jerks and both recently switched into Emancipation, we have a strong chance of getting these Wonders, due to those AIs' recent Anarchy.


If you dislike our current Civics, I'd suggest waiting at least 5 turns to switch them, so that we will have the best possible chance of snagging both of those Wonders.


Our current Civics are:
1. Hereditary Rule (to please 3 of the 4 remaining AIs)
2. Bureaucracy (in about 6 turns, we will have moved our Palace to Uruk--a location that can generate more Commerce and Hammers for us)
3. Caste System (it gives us extra Hammers for our Workshops and it allows us to run Artist Specialists in our newly-captured Cities to be able to expand the Cities' borders quickly)
4. State Property (we don't need to build The Forbidden Palace on-continent this way. That said, it will only take 12 turns to build in a middle-of-the-road City like Seattle, and if we do build it in a central location on our continent, we can always move the Palace off-continent at a later time. Either way, the lack of a Forbidden Palace is meaningless under State Property, so we have bought ourselves time and flexibility in terms of where to build it. Also, there aren't sufficient Foreign Trade Routes with Monte in Mercantilism to justifiy Free Market and it is my opinion that we should stay in State Property until we are ready to found and spread Corporations)
5. Organized Religion (we have Hinduism reasonably-well spread but this way you can spread it even more rapidly. We really should keep up Military Unit production in most of our core Cities--I've paused to build a few Courthouses and Drydocks here and there--but Organized Religion can help pump out the odd useful building in between Military Unit builds)


We now own The Pyramids, so it is tempting to switch into Police State, but again, wait at least 5 turns to see if we can get those 2 Wonders. Also, the huge loss in positive Diplo modifiers by switching out of Hereditary Rule is NOT WORTH IT, in my opinion, since having 3 Friendly AIs = a strong ability to stay in the tech race with tech trading.


We own 3 Academies--one in the current capital (Washington), one in the capital-to-be (Uruk), and one in a City captured from Bismarck that he'd captured from Elizabeth, who was kind enough to build us an Academy (Yokib).


We also have 3 Settlers sitting around ready to be used whenever a "gap" appears. For example, we could raze the Barb City on the island to the SW, and settle on the island so that the 2 Fish are both accessible with 1 cultural border expansion (hence why I suggest razing the Barb City there that will miss 1 Fish for a long time if we just capture the City). We could also build a City there to grab the Pig and the Iron.

Later, we could create a colony and could get 2 Resources for Sid's Sushi and 2 Resources for Mining Inc from our Vassal.

HOWEVER, creating a Colony (essentially creating a Vassal that can't break away from us, as far as I can tell) is a DANGEROUS MOVE, since it means that we'll likely lose our Friendly relationship with some of the AIs.

So, it might be better just to settle 2 Cities on that landmass (there really are only 2 good City locations). I am not certain if you can spawn a Colony with just 2 Cities or if you need 3 Cities, but if you need 3 Cities to spawn a Colony, then you could settle the Pig + Iron City so that a City can still be settled on the western edge of the island later (i.e. a City that does not violate the "cannot be built within a 2 square radius of any other City" rule), in case we want to create a colony out of the island later--but for now keeping 2 Cities there, so that we can maintain ownership of the Cities without incurring very high Colonial Maintenance Costs.

However, this Barb Island Settling is probably not our biggest priority--I only mention it as a minor "side quest" that you can probably wait for another 50 turns or so to bother with.

One benefit from executing this "side quest" would be the +2 Happiness from getting Silver, a Resource of which we currently do not have a source.


Our biggest issue right now is that Monte wants to go to war. Bismarck was NOT his target. He went into "hands full" mode shortly after our tribute of Education to him wore off, so we could easily be his target.

Of course, any of the AIs could also be his target, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

So, my recommendation would be to plan to fight Monte next. That would mean:
1. Sending our troops in Bismarck's old lands to the west, to fortify our western Cities
AND
2. Building some Drydocks and then a Navy (I have 4 Cities queued to build Drydocks for us and I have put signs on the map to help remind us where the Drydocks are, so that we won't forget which Cities should be building naval units and which Cities shouldn't be)
AND
3. a) If Monte declares on someone else, consider waiting a few turns for Monte to sail his ships to that AI and then backstab Monte
OR
3. b) If Monte declares war on us, consider bribing in war allies. Monte delcaring on us would be good in that we wouldn't take a relationship hit with the other AIs (Monte would take the relationship hits), we wouldn't suffer as much war weariness in the war, and if we fight in our lands due to Monte landing troops on our soil, we will get +100% Great General emergence due to owning The Great Wall


We also have FOUR Great People saved up:
1. A Great Engineer (Mining Inc later, anyone?)
2. A Great Merchant (Sid's Sushi later, anyone?)
3. A Great Scientist (a later Lightbulb after we get Physics--hopefully we'll get that tech in trade after learning Biology, a later partial-Golden-Age, or an Academy now)
4. A Great Spy (a later partial-Golden-Age--that's probably the best use for it--or used to infiltrate an AI to be able to take down their Cities defences with Spies--but that means also needing to build a ton of Spies, a unit type of which we currently have zero)


Two AIs are in Emancipation (Louis and Pacal), but that fact won't hurt us in the short term once the current turn ends and the War Weariness goes away.

That fact will likely hurt Monte more than it will us, since he won't have access to as many Happiness-based Resources as we will have.


I haven't looked at the other saved games yet, so I don't really know how to market my game in comparison to them, but I will say that as long as we proactively plan a good defence in case Monte lands some stacks of troops, the game should be a pretty fun one to play out.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@GKey

Spoiler :

Communism in. I revolt into SP... FP done in NY. Yes it would be good on other continent but I need fix economy right now.

The Forbidden Palace has no effect when you run State Property. Well, at least it won't have an effect on-continent. It'll help off-continent if Colonial Maintenance Costs do not disappear under State Property, but I'm not sure how they are handled under State Property--they might not exist or they might. Hopefully, someone else can tell us.

No matter. The Palace can always be moved off-continent later just as easily, although it does mean giving up on the Bureaucracy bonus in a useful location.

Still, who knows? Maybe we'll be running Nationalism instead of Bureaucracy at that point in the game, so the Palace's location will matter even less.


For whatever reason, I can't see any of the screenshots in your message. Maybe my internet service provider is just blocking the server that hosts your images?

 

[vranasm]

@gkey

some of us play sgotm in other team...you know... it's not good to spoiler us with thread/infos from other team, I almost accidentely clicked at the link...whoops

 

[GKey]

@Vranasm
I know rules. That's thread from SGOTM11, previous one.

 

[GKey]

I post images through picasa web http://picasaweb.google.com. Does anyone beside dhoom got problem view images in my last posts?


@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

Looks good. Why did you switch out of Free Market? Wanted compare results.

 

[Gumbolt]

Sorry spent last day on SGOTM. Really have not paid too much attention here. Forum has been a pain. Do we have enough saves for a vote?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@GKey

Spoiler :

Looks good. Why did you switch out of Free Market? Wanted compare results.

Okay, well I can tell you the results, since I saw that comparison occur in my game:
I saw an immediate 100 Gold per Turn gain on the turn that we came out of 2 turns of Anarchy from switching into State Property.

I was planning on sticking it out in Free Market, but after capturing a couple of Bismarck's Cities and then resettling a couple more, my economy took such a nosedive that I knew it would be suicidal to capture any more Cities and remain in Free Market, at least without more Courthouses and other economic buildings in our empire.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Sorry spent last day on SGOTM. Really have not paid too much attention here. Forum has been a pain. Do we have enough saves for a vote?

So, does that mean you will NOT be submitting a save anymore? Would I also be correct in assuming that your SGOTM teammates (lymond, bobbyboy29, Moroktonos, and vranasm) aren't going to submit a saved game?

Have we all been had? Was this game just some training practice for your SGOTM that you guys had no intention of continuing once the SGOTM got under way?


EDIT: It does seem like your team has the second-highest number of messages of any team in this SGOTM. Certainly, some of you can afford to slow down the pace of messages there and let some of the other SGOTM teams catch up, so that you can pump out an entry for this Cookbook.

 

[kossin]

I think if anything is to blame for the speed of all threads isn't SGOTM but civ 5... I mean look at the amount of references!

 

[Dhoomstriker]

I think if anything is to blame for the speed of all threads isn't SGOTM but civ 5... I mean look at the amount of references!

Okay... but what does the speed of the forum have to do with people deciding to spend time on strategizing for and playing test games for a SGOTM game instead of spending time on playing this excellent Cookbook?

It's not that people can't post messages about their progress in the Cookbook due to not being able to access the servers... otherwise how would they have been able to post messages in the SGOTM thread?

 

[vranasm]

sorry doom I think I wrote it 1-2 pages back, I have my hands deep in Civ V and even if it could have been better it's still somewhat fun, but horribly unbalanced. I am working on the achievements and if I make them all I will probably shelve the game to side until they make something with it (btw one of the most annoying things is that AIs like after you crush all their units to throw at you almost every city they have...even after they made patch that should adjust evaluation of cities in trades...).
Another problem is that the hammer costs especially of buildings are totally stupid to the point where you almost build only library, market, mint (where available), colosseum and nothing more.
Some buildings are completely useless like for example granary, watermill which add static amount of food which you at start dont need (horizontal growth limits your vertical growth) and when you finally can have some surplus food it's more cost effective to buy influence by maritime cities even without patronage tree (with it it's almost thinkless). And you sometimes don't need to buy the influence just follow some basic quests they give.

If i run CIV I run only our SGOTM tests, so i will not submit.


Ah sorry for the rant... I just had to vent it a bit.

 

[kossin]

Free time = Civ 4 + Civ 5

Where Civ 4 = Cookbook+ SGOTM + SP + etc.

When the Cookbook started, Civ 5 = 0 because it wasn't out. Similarly, SGOTM wasn't out so 0 there as well.

I'm assuming Civ 5 time has started eating into Civ 4 time so that means less time for Cookbook, SGOTM and SP... how the people decide to divide that time is another story.



EDIT: I'm quite surprised you didn't sign up for this SGOTM, you are a great teammate!

 

[drlake]

I'm still doing Civ 4 (only have the demo for Civ 5, and only played one game of that). That said, I spent much of the weekend configuring my new computer instead of playing Civ. I did try to play out the round, but got pissed as I posted earlier. I may still go back to it and see if I can make it work, though, but it won't be until later this week if at all (little time tonight, none tomorrow, mother-in-law arrives for a visit on Thursday). I also have put some time into the SGOTM, and played the first round of the latest NC for some pure recreation.

So, long story short, this is a bad time for me to play much, and when I tried to play the round I wasn't having fun so I stopped.

 

[lymond]

Kos - Do you have CIV5 yet? What do you think?

I played the next round here but I'm not submitting it. I didn't like the results. It's hard sometimes not being in the mind of the person who submitted the winning save. I should bribed peace between Biz and Gilg. Teched fine and won Lib easily, but somehow Louis became a beast in my game. Churchhill was the Pacal colony the popped up in my game. Biz attacked him and I did later but should have attacked sooner. I took one of his cities but Biz took two. All my army was in the West preparing for Monty assault.

 

[kossin]

No, not willing to buy it while it's still buggy. I'll try out the demo first... maybe buy it at expansions like I did for Civ 3 and 4