Washington (IC) Immortal Cookbook

[GKey]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

You raise a very valid point! In my game, if one wanted, one could could hire 2 Merchants in Washington and thus get a Great Person in 6 turns.
That's quite possible

That would mean 4 turns without using the Bureaucracy bonus, since Bureaucracy comes in 2 turns.

However, in exchange, it would save 3 turns of Anarchy.

Then one could hire Specialists everywhere during the Golden Age, getting the +100% GPP bonus, to "make up for" the expense of using the Great Person in a Golden Age.
AFAIK its not recommended running specs during GA. You need its hammers and commerce boost.

Since Monte will give us Civil Service now for Peace, plus Gold and Archery, likely after a turn or two of research into Philosophy, he'd give us Philosophy for peace.
He give CS since its 700 beakers from completion + Archery and gold. Overall about 1000 beakers. Same will go with Philo. Yo will need put ~900 beakers yourself and then trade. Will be faster during GA though.

That would give you 6 turns to capture another City of his (quite doable), get most of Philosophy from him, and then have a very similar Golden Age to yours (including Bureaucracy, Caste System, and Pacifism), without needing to burn a Great Person on Philosophy itself.

Its almost always worth it Burning GS on Philo early mainly for its excellent trade value + Pacifism + Tao. In your game you could trade it to HC for paper and adding Theology for Machinery to Bis. Then run for education and backfill with it? WFYBTA will prevent that... Honestly digging us out of a tech hole will require some thinking in your game. (4 AIs already got paper). Burning Great person on GA instead bulbing is questionable move in current tech situation IMO.

That would also buy time to get some Catapults over to Monte's lands, so that further City captures would go even more smoothly. It would also allow us to Liberate his Dual Holy City (if one wanted to do so--I want to) for an extra +1 Diplo modifier with Monte and so that he can be left with that City as his only City after the second war, giving the rest of his continent to us.

That's possible. I would prefer to eliminate him completely thus not having "We earn to join our..." modifier.

Follow it up with the Forbidden Palace being chopped out in a central City on his continent and the Colonial Maintenance Costs would go away. Then, all future wars would simply be a matter of "pushing east, always to the east."

This return us to the tech problem. All east guys except Bis are way more advanced then we are.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Here are a few comments on others' games. As with last time, these comments were made only in the context of looking at the saved games, not while remembering what your own comments about your games were, so if there's something redundant with what you've already written, please ignore said feedback.

@vranasm

Spoiler :

Nice work in getting up some Courthouses!

An Academy in Washington is nice.

Great work in using Boston as your Great Person Farm! Since you did not settle an Iron City, this method is a great way of leveraging the Wheat that the Iron City would likely otherwise steal.

One minor issue is that Philadelphia's Corn is not irrigated. I'd suggest paving over the Cottage 1N of it with a Farm, getting irrigation from the Oasis.

Also, good work in settling at the Fur + Fish location. You've done a nice job in taking control of the Fish Resources there and thus have a nice City with some tradeable Fur Resources.

On that note, you could certainly make some more Resource trades. A relatively obvious one would be one of your extra Furs for Monte's Dye. Nice work, though, in getting Ivory from Bismarck!

That Gold in New York is a nice bonus.

I like the idea of building Wealth when you are at Peace, to help keep your tech rate going.

It appears that you are pushing to get 2 Great Scientists in quick succession. I would almost suggest that Washington rebalance its efforts a bit--instead of working a Coast, you could work a Fish and then convert 2 of your Hamlets into Scientists, speeding up the Great-Person-generation process. You could arguably switch the Oasis to the Pig and yet another Hamlet to a Scientist, allowing you to run 7 Scientists with a slow but positive net Food gain (+1 Food per turn).

I see that you have a Warrior keeping an eye on Gilgamesh, to see if and when he send his stacks of units at you--great idea. I wonder if it wouldn't hurt to send out a unit to explore Gilgamesh's and Bismarck's lands, since you do have Open Borders with both of them. That exploration will make future World Map trades a lot cheaper and this map intelligence could prove useful if one of your continent-mates decides to attack you.

It seems that your Workers have done a good job of improving the land.

The tech pace is nice, with you almost at Education while having a monopoly on Paper. With Philosophy in the bank, Liberalism is all but guaranteed, as long as you don't mind taking a tech like Nationalism with it. A more expensive tech would also be quite possible with Liberalism, what with 2 Great Scientists coming out and your monopoly on Paper. In fact, you have sufficient Research invested in Education to be able to Lightbulb it. I'd recommend switching to a different tech for 4 turns until your Great Scientist comes out and then use the Great Scientist to complete Education for you.

Nice work in stacking a good portion of your units in your border Cities, especially the one on Monte's continent.

It is certainly interesting that Gilgamesh decided to settle the one-square Ice Island to the north-west of our starting area. Despite that fact, I think that it would be a good idea to settle the Iron City, as that Whale won't be of use for a long time anyway (so it doesn't matter that Gilgamesh owns the Whale for now), since you are lacking both Compass and Optics.

Also, good job on building the Market in Washington, the City in which it has the biggest impact on both your Gold income and your needed Happiness.

You've got trading possibilities with every one of the AIs. It is hard to tell which of the AIs are only 1 tech or are several techs away from WFYABTA, but at least you have a good opportunity set up for the next round of trading!

@Quaren

Spoiler :

Wow, nice head-way in the war against Gilgamesh!

As for the Apostolic Palace defying, you only get unhappiness in Cities with the Apostolic Palace's Religion.

This unhappiness does wear off. I'm not exactly sure how long (10 turns? 15 turns on Epic? maybe double that amount?), but it does wear off.

The most painful issue with defying a resolution is that you won't get any bonus Hammers from the Apostolic Palace's Religion's buildings. Since it appears that you only have The Kong Miao and no other such buildings, it's not a major factor in your game.

One unfortunate part of being at war with Gilgamesh is that you are cut off from all foreign trade routes, which definitely hurts your economy. Part of that fact is my fault, with Sumerica cutting you off from Monte's Trade Routes. If you plan to continue the war for a long period of time, then I would suggest prioritizing the capture of Gilgamesh's Cities on the northern Coast (plus the Barb City there, if it still belongs to the Barbs). Either that or get a force of troops dropped off to the north-west to raze Sumerica. Again, sorry about putting that particular "trap" in the game--it wasn't intentionally done.

The fact that you have The Apostolic Palace and several Cities with its Religion gives you a lot of power--you'll have the chance to become the Pope Elect, propose a Resolution that is easy for you to vote "Yes" on (which would give you the bonus Hammers from the Apostolic Palace's Religious buildings back), and as you suggested, it gives you an opportunity to win the game using an Apostolic Palace Victory.

Good job in getting Optics so that the Whale can be leveraged--that extra bit of Happiness during your defying phase will go a long way.

Certainly, having access to the Forge's Happiness Trifecta (Gold, Silver, and Gems) will help you out, which would make me suggest that any City which has current unhappiness issues and a large-enough size (Washington, Philadelphia, and Chicago, for example), should put 1 turn into building a Forge and then whip it (or whip it immediately in Chicago, since you've already started to build it there). That fact should help to deal with many of your unhappiness issues.

I also like how you're trying to pump out the Cultural levels of your recently-captured Cities.

As I think GKey mentioned, switching into Bureaucracy soon should be a priority, since it is a great Civic to run. In addition, since you're nearing the threshold for it costing you 2 turns instead of 1 turn to revolt, doing so before you capture another City should be your goal. I'm not sure how that threshold for increasing the length of Civic switches works, but I am pretty sure that it is based on the number of Cities that you own. I have 13 Cities to your 11 Cities, and it will already cost 2 turns to switch a single Civic in my game, so I would think that you're very close to the threshold.

You picked a great City (New York) in which to settle a Great General, due to our production there.

It's a bit unfortunate that you didn't Farm one of the two Grassland squares to the E or SE of Chicago (the Rice + Gold City). As a result of not having a nearby Farm, the Rice remains unirrigated. Now that you've captured Gilgamesh's Cities in the area, I'd recommend sending a Worker down there to put a Grassland Farm on the square SE + S of Chicago that currently is unimproved, to get you this extra Food on the Rice. The same could be done for Philadelphia's Corn and Boston's Wheat, by paving-over a Cottage and a Hamlet, respectively. Again, you could do the same for the Sugar + Rice City, by building a Farm over top of the Cottage to the SW of that City (Seattle).

Gilgamesh really went nuts with Wonders in your game--you even have The Parthenon! Nice!

The We Fear You Are Becoming Too Advanced thresholds indicate that you've done a great job in trading--perhaps too great of a job, if you took too many cheap techs in trade, like Archery. It is REALLY hard to break the habit of getting every tech that an AI offers in trade, but it is a good habit to break.

If you also switched into Organized Religion at the same time as switching into Bureaucracy, it would cost you an extra turn (instead of 2 turns after capturing more Cities) but would allow you to whip Forges a bit more cheaply in some Cities. That way, you could probably whip one in New York, helping you to better leverage that City's production without killing off too many citizens to do so.

I'd also suggest that building and working Plains Cottages in Boston or else building more Specialist-enabling buildings there (Forge, Market, Temple, etc) and running Specialists, would make for a better use of your excess Food than working Coast squares will net you.

Nice work in setting up some Resource Trades. There are more trades that you can make, though. Do consider trading away your only source of a Resource. For example, Pacal would gladly take your only source of Crab for one of his Dyes. Your most unheathy City has 2 excess Health, while the next closest unhealthy City has 5 extra Health, meaning that you can certainly afford to trade away your only source of a Health Resource in favour of getting a Happiness one.

@drlake

Spoiler :

Nice Academy in Washington. I would suggest that working a Pig and a Clam and then whipping citizens would be stronger than working Desert Hills Mines. Certainly, whipping the Forge would pay for itself in terms of Happiness to balance the whipping unhappiness.

Good job on planning out Moai Statues for your Iron City! That's a great use of your Hammers! What I would suggest is that you switch one of those Grassland Hills Mines to the Wheat NOW. Maybe even build a Granary before completing Moai. As useful as Moai will be, it will be far more useful after the City has grown; until then, its bonus Hammers won't really be workable by the City's citizens. So, you can afford to relax the pace on which you complete this National Wonder in the pursuit of getting more population points in that City, which will in turn make the National Wonder that much more useful upon its completion.

Philadelphia could probably benefit more by working the Corn instead of the Des Hills Mine, growing closer to its Happiness cap or else whipping every once and a while to get you some production.

There are several Resource Trades that are available for you to make, if you choose to trade away your only source of a Resource. Even if it's a net-neural effect (+1 Happiness traded for +1 Happiness), the AI in question will start to like you a lot more over time, up to +2 in Diplo relations, just for having traded with them. It's a very simple way to get more of the AIs "on your side," thus reducing the chance that they will declare war on you, increasing the chance of them doing things with you because they like you (such as offering Strategic Resources up for trade or joining wars on your side), and it can help you out if you prioritize getting the Resources that you will get the "bonus buildings" for--say, getting a Dye Resource if you plan to build Theatres for The Globle Theatre or Fur if you plan to build Markets. For example, Incense could be traded to Bismarck for Fur, such that you'd actually get +2 Happiness in any City that builds a Market. Incense is great for a game where you build Cathedrals but is a weak Happiness Resource in a game where you don't plan to build any Cathedrals.

Bismarck is Pleased with you. He can currently be bribed into a war against Gilgamesh, although his price is going to be very high. That means that if you do plan to go to war against Gilgamesh in the future, you will have a potential war ally to back you up. Getting a war ally to join you in a war is far cheaper than asking someone to go to war with an AI that you are at peace with.

So, once you declare war on Gilgamesh (or Gilgamesh declares war on you), that's when it will be time to bribe in Bismarck to help you.

It's too bad that Gilgamesh has the Chichen Itza, but at least it is a nice prize for you to capture.

It would help a LOT to build 2 to 3 Triremes and park them outside of Philadelphia before you start the war against Gilgamesh, so that you can trap Gilgamesh's army of Galleys in his nearby City of Nibru. That way, his shipping wouldn't play as much havoc with your Seafood Resources.

 

[drlake]

Thanks for the commentary, Dhoom. I never thought of doing some of the resource trades you suggest, and like the way you leveraged the large number of health resources we have in your game. I need to adopt that "trick" more generally.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@GKey

Spoiler :

How to best Leverage a Golden Age

AFAIK its not recommended running specs during GA. You need its hammers and commerce boost.

Interesting thinking!

Well, consider the following:
Let's say that you have sufficient surplus Food to work either a Grassland Cottage or a Plains Cottage, which would you choose to work during a Golden Age?

I'd pick the Plains Cottage, as each turn of the Golden Age nets you +1 Hammer and +1 Commerce for that square, while a Grassland Cottage would only net you +1 Commerce.

So, certainly, if you're talking about working Plains Cottages, then sure, work those, as they provide a pretty nice boost.


But, if we contrast a Grassland Cottage against a Specialist, again assuming sufficient surplus Food to work either one (a situation that several of our Cities have) I think that working the Specialist is a strong move.

The Grassland Cottage only nets you +1 Commerce per turn. Hiring the Specialist, though, gives you +50% more GPP than when you're running Pacifism and +100% more GPP than when you're running a different Religious Civic.


Let's also look at it another way. Most of our Cottages are currently Hamlets or Villages. Assume that we're talking about the difference between working a Riverside Hamlet or non-Riverside Village, either of which nets us 3 Commerce. Again, let's ignore the Bureaucracy bonus, since we're talking "what to do in general in most of your Cities with sufficient Food to do either."

Running a Scientist will give you 3 Flasks, which, at a 100% Science rate, are equivalent to 3 Commerce. So, before the Golden Age, the two are equal in terms of Flask output. You are thus essentially getting either 2 Food or 3 GPP.

During the Golden Age, you get 1 extra Commerce by working that Grassland Cottage (whatever it has matured to--a Hamlet or a Village--I'll just call it a Cottage for simplicity's sake) versus getting 3 Great People Points (GPP) for hiring that Specialist.

You trade 2 Food to hire the Specialist, which, in a lot of our Food-heavy Cities is not a major cost, and can already be weighed against the original 3 GPP.

I guess then it comes down to deciding which is more important to you:
+1 Commerce
vs
+3 GPP

If a City will NEVER generate a Great Person, then the extra GPP are of no use. But, if there's a good chance of spawning a Great Person in that City before the end of the game, and given several Cities where we already have a lot of Food (as is the case in our game), I'd favour taking the 3 GPP.


As you indicated, getting an early Great Person, say, for Lightbulbing Philosophy, can have a net compounding effect for the trades that you can make with that tech. That, or you can hog the tech to all but guarantee your chances of being the first to Liberalism and can then even chose to trade that tech afterwards.


So, yes, if we're talking about working Plains Cottages during a Golden Age and we have a good use for that production (like we do in our low-production game), then working them is a great choice.

But working Grassland Cottages, when one has excess Food that can be leveraged, should be considered more on a City-by-City basis, based on whether or not one thinks that they can generate a Great Person in that City in order to use the extra GPP, and if yes, then my inclination would be to favour getting the GPP.


Getting Philosophy "in time" for a Golden Age

He give CS since its 700 beakers from completion + Archery and gold. Overall about 1000 beakers. Same will go with Philo. Yo will need put ~900 beakers yourself and then trade. Will be faster during GA though.

With a displayed Flask rate of 204 Flasks at a sustainable 50% Science Rate--mostly due to getting The Great Lighthouse--we have 4 turns in which to do so, in order to get Philosophy just as the Golden Age can be started.

Given that Monte will even trade us 1 Gold per Turn for Peace, he will likely offer us more than he shows being available, so I think that it is very realistic for us to expect to be able to Research enough of Philosophy in order to get it in trade from Monte before the Golden Age can be started.

So, while my initial rough estimate appears to be off, it doesn't really matter, as we should be able to get the tech in time for a possible Golden Age.

While I agree that getting Philosophy via a Lightbulb is a strong move, we might as well leverage the special circumstances in the game to get a good portion of Philosophy's value from Montezuma, who won't have anything else to trade us for Peace if we don't do so.

Thus, if a Great Scientist spawns (which has a high likelihood of happening), I'd use it in a Golden Age, switch to Bureaucracy, Caste System, and Pacifism, run a bunch of Specialists while working Plains Cottages, and then switch Civics at the end of the Golden Age, probably back to Slavery and one of Organized Religion or Theocracy.

When one has a large empire and Civic Switches cost more (like in my game), using the Golden Age to switch Civics is an even strong play than normal.


Maybe you're right and using the Great Scientist on Education might be better than running a Golden Age. That said, with a plan of running a lot of Specialists during the Golden Age, I think that it's very justifiable to get the extra GPP from that Golden Age in order to be able to generate another Great Scientist in time to help out with Lightbulbing Education.


The Tech Situation--Especially when several AIs are ahead of you in tech

WFYBTA will prevent that... Honestly digging us out of a tech hole will require some thinking in your game. (4 AIs already got paper).

What's nice is that as long as we remain in the bottom half of the Scoreboard, other AIs that are in the bottom half will still trade with us beyond the WFYABTA limit.

What's also nice is that by the AIs being ahead of us, we can research techs faster by piggybacking off of their research, and any techs that we do research and are able to find a trading partner for, will net us more value per tech than in a game where one is in the tech lead and has no much to get in trade for their advanced techs.

Honestly, losing Liberalism to an AI is only really bad if only ONE AI is far ahead of you--if multiple AIs are ahead of you, it hardly hurts at all, as you can usually get that tech prize in a trade anyway, due to multiple AIs having access to such a tech realtively quickly and thus avoiding the "Monopoly Tech" trading denial that you will see when only 1 AI is running away with the tech lead.

So, while we're coming from behind in the tech race, the situation is very far from hopeless and there are good sides to it, too. I would expect that this situation would be the case in your average Immortal game, so it's probably a good situation to get used to playing in.


What to do about Monte and who should become a Vassal

That's possible. I would prefer to eliminate him completely thus not having "We earn to join our..." modifier.

And that's certainly a valid option. To me, each AI has a "Great Person potential," where they can usually earn at least 3 Great People in a game, even with a marginalized Civ. If you eliminate them too early, you lose out on being able to capture the benefits of these "free" Great People.

Arguably, it is going to be very tough for Monte to run any kind of a Specliast in the Food-poor Dual Holy City, so it might not matter that much in this game.

Still, I think that we have sufficient excess Happiness to deal with the "We yearn to join our Motherland" Unhappiness effects, so the choice to keep him alive can remain more of a strategic decision.

I would NOT suggest taking Monte on as a vassal in my game, though, as he won't be of much use to use on such an isolated continent.

Gilgamesh would make for a far better vassal in most of our games, since he can help in taking the brunt of Bismarck's attacks, while we sneak in and take Bismarck's Cities.


Leveraging the AIs' Advanced Tech Situation to go to Space that much Faster

This return us to the tech problem. All east guys except Bis are way more advanced then we are.

Again, it is a bit more challenging than in the average game, since most AIs in our game have low WFYABTA thresholds. That said, the game will be well-set-up for a Space game, with us having a lot of AIs to either trade techs with or to piggyback Research off of.

Domination will be a bit more of a challenge than in games where the AIs are less technologically advanced, but again, it won't be an impossible Victory Condition to achieve.

All of that said, there are a lot of interesting-looking games that you guys have uploaded which I'd like to play out. A lot of my arguments about how to deal with being behind in tech can be applied to others' games, as well.

 

[GKey]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

Interesting points. I do really enjoy this discussion.

Just to clarify some:

I do not advocate adamantium rule never run specs during GA!
Just usually, since GA gives you both commerce and production, you will prefer work as much tiles as possible during it. There could be exceptions and urgent need of GPP is one of them.
But why speculate? We have 2 decent GP farms we are talking about.

Washington size 12, can easily grow above 15.
With Caste System during GA we will get:

1 Running 7 specs = 21 beakers per turn and additional 21 GPP per turn, small starvation is ok plus 5 base commerce from sea food tiles.
2 Running all workable tiles = 5 additional hammers and 10 additional commerce per turn in addition to 55 base commerce from cottages. Plus it will get 10 food surplus thus groving bigger fast, plus cottages keep grove.
What to chose? Depends on situation. Currently GPP might be more important, but in average I would chose 2nd option.
Same goes to Boston, with not exactly same numbers.

Dealing with WFYBTA:
I mentioned in my post 2 only possible trades you can currently make. I don't see how can we switch Lui and Pacal to friendly.
Our main trade partner seems to be our next target!
So we are stuck with Gilgamesh - our next target and HC which will go WFYBTA soon too I suspect. Bismark is low on score and will trade. But he is also most backward and is not that good trade buddy.

I am not talking about losing liberalism (your point that it hardly hurt us is a bit unclear to me, we do need it to catch up).
I am talking about that hindu love fest on east continent, which refusing to trade with us!


I did not mean we should lightbulb Philo now - clearly waste of GS. But early Philo in my game was a no doubt lifesaver. That actually secured my techlead.

Btw I am comfortable on immortal and had few successful deity games on normal speed. In my experience these guys are way too fast for this difficulty level.

 

[kossin]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

I do not advocate adamantium rule never run specs during GA!
Just usually, since GA gives you both commerce and production, you will prefer work as much tiles as possible during it. There could be exceptions and urgent need of GPP is one of them.

Spoiler :

Running Specs in a Golden Age is for spawning quick Great Persons... that's why you usually try to grow 2-3 cities to happy/health cap before triggering the Golden Age.

 

[GKey]

@kossin
Wasn't it exactly what I've said?

There could be exceptions and urgent need of GPP is one of them.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@GKey--I edited in a lot of content, please re-read

Spoiler :

A Good Discussion can promote learning

Interesting points. I do really enjoy this discussion.

Great. I enjoy a good a friendly discussion where we can work together to try and come up with useful information.

I'd never really tried to break down the math for running Specialists during a Golden Age until you brought up the issue, for example.

I do not advocate adamantium rule never run specs during GA

I'm sorry if I implied that you did mean that--it was not my intention.


The Washington Example

But why speculate? We have 2 decent GP farms we are talking about.

Washington size 12, can easily grow above 15.
With Caste System during GA we will get:

1 Running 7 specs = 21 beakers per turn and additional 21 GPP per turn, small starvation is ok plus 5 base commerce from sea food tiles.
2 Running all workable tiles = 5 additional hammers and 10 additional commerce per turn in addition to 55 base commerce from cottages. Plus it will get 10 food surplus thus groving bigger fast, plus cottages keep grove.

I haven't checked your math but will trust it.

However, if we're going to compare things, we can probably assume that if we're running that many Specialists, we are going to take the time to switch into Pacifism.

In that case, 21 GPP actually equates to 21 GPP (from the Specialists) + 21 GPP (from Pacifism) + 21 GPP (from the Golden Age's effects) = 63 GPP.

21 Flasks + 63 GPP sounds a lot better when compared to the numbers that you are mentioning for working the City's squares.


Bureaucracy
The thing is, though, that you're talking about our capital, which, at the start of this supposed Golden Age that we might possibly run, will be our Bureaucratic capital. So, every 2 Commerce that we make are actually 3 Commerce and every 2 Hammers that we make are actually 3 Hammers. This fact applies to not only the bonus Hammers and Commerce but also the "normal" Hammers and Commerce that you would "give up" by hiring Specialists instead. If you have a Forge, like you do in my game, it is possible that getting some extra Hammers will push you over the next multiple of 4 Hammers, netting you even one more Hammer.

So, the math isn't completely straight-forward, but requires some case-by-case thinking, to ensure that it is worth your while to give up your Bureaucracy bonus and for all Cities, that you're getting a good Forge bonus.


Organized Religion vs Pacifism
In fact, if you choose to run Organized Religion instead of Pacifism during the Golden Age, then getting the bonus Hammers sounds much stronger and hiring the Specialists sounds much weaker. Thus, choosing the method of allocating your citizens can be affected by your Civic choices.

You could even say that on the last turn of the Golden Age, if you choose to switch to Organized Religion instead of Pacifism, it might be preferable to fire a few Specialists, if you can get your Hammers up to a good multiple of 4 Hammers, to better leverage the bonus Hammers combined with Organized Religion.

You'd want to rejuggle the citizens on the turn outside of the Golden Age, too, so that sounds like a lot of work for just 1 turn and most players probably won't bother.


The value of GPP

What to chose? Depends on situation. Currently GPP might be more important, but in average I would chose 2nd option.

And you're right--later in the game, GPP matter less, since it takes so many more GPP to get the next Great Person. In my game, we've only generated one Great Person (although we have generated 2 Great Generals, but those don't count in the GPP-generation numbers), so GPP have a much higher value, as getting them can lead to a Great Person more quickly than average.


Getting Hinduism

I mentioned in my post 2 only possible trades you can currently make. I don't see how can we switch Lui and Pacal to friendly.

We'd probably have to capture Hinduism in order to obtain it. Berlin, the German capital, has Hinduism.

Two of Gilgamesh's Cities have Hinduism, but they are, admitted, at the eastern edge of his empire and will take a long time to capture.


Who to Attack Next

So we are stuck with Gilgamesh - our next target and HC which will go WFYBTA soon too I suspect. Bismark is low on score and will trade. But he is also most backward and is not that good trade buddy.

One issue with attacking Gilgamesh is that doing so will cut off Trade Routes with the eastern Civs. After having captured The Great Lighthouse, whose value IS extra Trade Routes, it might not be the wisest move to cut off access to the most lucrative Trade Routes.

Attacking Bismarck won't block our Trade Routes, thanks to Pacal having a City to the north of Germany on our continent, instead of Germany having a City there.

With him, as you say, being technologically backwards, and with Gilgamesh as a war ally, Bismarck does seem like a good choice to attack next.


Tech Rate of the AIs

I did not mean we should lightbulb Philo now - clearly waste of GS. But early Philo in my game was a no doubt lifesaver. That actually secured my techlead.

And that's an excellent move to make. Nice work on doing it.

A related point that I would like to ask is: do you recall when Trade Routes in your game were opened up with the eastern Civs?

It looks like the Barb City that was blocking trade just to the NE of Gilgamesh was razed and that Pacal resettled the area.

The timing of when the Barb City was destroyed is probably what opened up trade with the east--perhaps the AIs in my game are more advanced by having access to these Trade Routes earlier in the game?


Also, perhaps because Pacal settled Gilgamesh's northern Coast, you did not even have a disruption with eastern Trade Routes when fighting Gilgamesh? Certainly, this fact would be more helpful in the games where we own The Great Lighthouse (Gumbolt's and mine), but the irony is that in these games, Gilgamesh owns that northern Coast instead of Pacal, so we'd lose the value of The Great Lighthouse by going after Gilgamesh. Sigh.


The Value of Liberlism

I am not talking about losing liberalism (your point that it hardly hurt us is a bit unclear to me, we do need it to catch up).

I agree that the tech pace is probably one of the weakest things in my game--both our low tech and the AIs' high level of tech.

What I meant was that although it is nice to be first to a free tech with Liberalism, this fact means more in a game where you are already ahead of the AIs. When they are ahead by a few techs, whatever gets Liberalismed by one AI is often quickly manually-researched by 1 or 2 other AIs. So, you can often get the Liberalismed tech in trade for free, and can even get Liberalism in trade for free. Thus, you are no worse off in tech relative to a game where you were the first one to Liberalism.

The difference, of course, is that RELATIVE to the AIs, you're worse off, but if you're going for a Space Victory, it actually helps to have AIs that are ahead of you or about at the same tech pace as you, as long as you have secured a lot of land (i.e. Monte's land helps) earlier on in the game.

When playing Game of the Month games, it can be helpful to have AIs in one's game that are teching well if you are going for Space, as you can get a faster win than other players who are playing the same game as you but have a bunch of technologically-backwards AIs in their game.


Trading with the Underdogs beyond WFYABTA

I am talking about that hindu love fest on east continent, which refusing to trade with us!

While that part sucks, if a bunch of the AIs are far ahead of us, then we can remain in the "bottom half" of the players on the Score Board. That makes us an underdog, and other underdogs will continue to trade techs with us beyond the WFYABTA limit. Thus, having AIs that are far ahead of us can also help, assuming that those in the bottom half have useful techs to trade, since we'll still be able to make tech trades as long as there are enough AIs that are doing well to be able to keep us out of the top half of the Score Board.


Tech-sharing Love-fest

Btw I am comfortable on immortal and had few successful deity games on normal speed. In my experience these guys are way too fast for this difficulty level

Yes, there is definitely a tech-sharing love-fest going on in my game, but as long as we remain in the bottom half of the Score Board, we can benefit by having our techs be cheaper to research (via piggybacking Research) and by still having a couple of underdogs + Gilgamesh who will trade with us well beyond their WFYABTA limit.


Open Questions on the exact mechanics of Trading with Underdogs
I'm not sure how Dead Civs are treated in terms of the "top half" and "bottom half," nor am I certain how the "middle of the pack" player works, but depending upon the answer to those points, it may or may not help to completely eliminate Monte and thus possibly get one more underdog who will actually have techs to trade to us (Monte won't have much after Pacifism).

 

[vranasm]

@dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

i think you give my save too much credit, some of those things you mention were completely unintentional and it ended as it ended somewhat on its own...

the scouting was poor I forgot to send some land troop relying only on water where I sent 2 galleys around (built 5 +-) and both were eaten by barb galleys. The one who thought that giving barbs ship without early counter would be great idea should shoot himself. It's hammer expensive, costs you too much turns, i hate it.

Now i have paper I checked world map buys...well everyone is more interested in the tech as it seems.

edit:

Spoiler :

checked my save again .

well washington is running scientist probably because it runs out of cottages with its size I can see your points in speeding GS, but wash isnt GPP farm and i would like more growing cottages to really mature. After Edu lands the intention is to quickly whip university and in some other cities.

trades... well at least I made some this time! I totally oversaw the abundance of furs :-( I checked the resource and talked myself (you have only 1 you cant trade your only source!)...getting dyes from Monte and 6 gpt from HC for furs seems like great missed opportunity, that could be probably fixed at t0 of the save if someone wants to play from it (I dont think it will be the case with the nonexistant land advantage ;-)).

Interesting enough I made some trades exactly this:
dyes for fur
dyes for 6gpt
OB with HC
OB with Luis
and turning slider to 70% brings +5 gpt, 262 bpt, edu in 8 turns...

well NOW i am ANGRY ON MYSELF!!! would be much better looking save! :-( missed opportunity we can say

 

[Gumbolt]

The voting has begun!!! The voting will last for 2 days and will close at approximately 6pm GMT on Tuesday. Please post a request for additional time needed to vote, but I would like to close by Tuesday at the latest to get the next round going. (The voting round could end sooner if everyone gets their votes in earlier)

Standard cookbook doctrine: Its not always about voting for the best save but the save that will be most interesting or challenging to play. Anyone that submitted a save is free to vote.

Please rank your top 3 in order.

First place 3 points.
Second place 2 points
Third place. 1 point.

PLEASE NOTE!! To keep voting fair you cant vote for your own save. You are expected to vote for 3 saves and give reasons for your voting. Remember this is a learning game. I would encourage everyone to act within the spirit that the cookbook is intended.

The saves:

Lymond

Gumbolt

DrLake

Quaren

Dhoomstriker

vranasm

Gkey

Fierabras - Played round but did not complete it. Looks unlucky.

Should be some interesting voting. Everyone took so different directions.

 

[vranasm]

This round was mostly interesting.
It came to 3 groups of saves for me
- group 1 killing Gilga
- group 2 killing Monte
- group 3 killing self with not enough land, but strong bpt (optimaly!)

One thing we didnt discuss yet is colonial maintenance which starts with 4 cities at other continent (and in Dhoom's save it's really showing off). That limits Monte rush saves in big way. And i think in the end make the decision for me easier.

The ones voted should feel like winners of the category since i will vote for all 3 groups.

Gkey
best save overall, good techs, good bpt. Gilgamesh killed off (limiting him to 1 city is matter of few turns).
Great position for diplo victory btw!

Lymond
well it's peacefull so i think you did it right .

Gumbolt
better from the 2 monte rushes in the sense that you are far forward in techs.
The colonial expense will severely limit getting more cities from Monte and that would limit both saves.

 

[bobbyboy29]

OK so I know its late but I played it, don't mind if I don't get taken into consideration i'm interested to see how everyone else went. It's late here and I played in a rush and was a bit sloppy but I got some good luck and am in a very winnable position.

to 400AD

Spoiler :

1st thing I did was whip 2 settlers to get the gold and rice cities up.

Then it was basically workers, whip infra, then grow grow grow and trade trade trade. Economy basically crashed but I crawled to writing and that got me to aesthetics which was good trade value. Next bargaining chip was MC as it was the only one no-one else had, this turned out to be a fortuitous decision as:

And then subsequently:

Yeah, so each forge gives +3 This may well set my save apart from others although I suspect most played this better than I did.

I ran scientists in 3 different cities so i've already got 3GS, NE is being built in Boston. Here's the 1st one ready to build an academy in the cap.

Next 2 bulbed philo thn edu.

So that's mostly it. I built 1 city up north on the Iron to grab whales as well. Also around 100AD giggles went WHEEOOHRN and I freaked out which explains all the longbows, luckily he's going for monty which suits me just fine.

As you can see from the tech situation, libs in the bag and I should be able to get RP at least (if not rifling). I was thinking of drafted, whipped rifles+trebs to take down gilgamesh.
pics:

SO as you can see i'm in a reasonable position. Probably others have done better. I reckon i could have put a dint in Giggles and still managed to win lib but i'm tired so i didn't. Unis, NE are going up, that's about it for my save. Although popping Silver AND gems was big. I've got a thick cottage carpet lain which should mature nicely as well...

Looking forward to seeing how others went about it!

 

[vranasm]

nice save bobby... but for some odd reason when I open the save it's 320AD and 2 turns to EDU...but I think I can see the point for the next 4 or so turns

 

[GKey]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

Knew I forgot something, sorry. Yes its 21GPP in addition to 21(42) existent GPP.

Did not want complicate things too much, so I made calculations for base hammers/commerce.
That way we talking about GA bonus of 21GPP vs 5 base hammers 10 base commerce + etc.
GA+OR will have impact in all our cities, so I prefer it on GA+Pacifism.

That's true not only for late game. As you can see working tiles is already more beneficial during GA, but urgent needs may cause us sacrifice that to GPP.

At least in my game it worked well:
Start of GA revolt into OR/slavery, benefit from additional hammers, at the end of GA whip all I could and revolt back into CS/Pac+Buro.

A related point that I would like to ask is: do you recall when Trade Routes in your game were opened up with the eastern Civs?

It looks like the Barb City that was blocking trade just to the NE of Gilgamesh was razed and that Pacal resettled the area.

The timing of when the Barb City was destroyed is probably what opened up trade with the east

Yes, I was incredibly lucky to steal Khoisan from Gilgamesh with my chariot.

On the other hand, I did not pop any copper/silver/gems, you can't get everything I guess.

That was very hard turn anyway. At some point I though we are doomed - 4 (!) AIs got Alphabet (even Monty!) and 1 got Aest , while I was like 20 turns from Aest.
It couse me make detour into Meditation-Priesthood. Decided if more AI's get Aest I will abandon it, run directly to CoL and bulb Philo. That was good decision after all, because when I finished Aest and trade it for IW and Alpha(90 beakers in), I could trade Alpha+Aest for Monarchy to Bis.
Bulbing Philo netted me MC, Currency and Calendar.
Since then running CS/Pacifism I was ok in tech pace.

Btw, since I was not at war with Monty, I had intercontinental trade nevertheless. I guess my war with Gilgamesh disrupted him from settling that site later on, so I never had problem trade with east. Was kind of surprising Maya get there before Bis though. Bismark is slow in this game in so many aspects.

Yes, we sure can trade with other underdogs. We don't have other choice anyway.

 

[Gumbolt]

I would include your save Bobbyboy29 if it was played to 400ad. I think you posted the wrong save! Only played to 310ad. Looked impressive.

 

[bobbyboy29]

I would include your save Bobbyboy29 if it was played to 400ad. I think you posted the wrong save! Only played to 310ad. Looked impressive.

Lol sorry, it was late and i guess I was too tired to save the game before I got ahead of myself and started typing it up . Here's the 400AD save.

 

[GKey]

Anyone knows what is a cap for "you have wisely chosen your civics" modifier? Is there thread about that?

Edit: Do we still need spoiler tags?

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Anyone knows what is a cap for "you have wisely chosen your civics" modifier? Is there thread about that?

Certainly, there are threads about this stuff. The relevant info can be found in the Civ4LeaderHeadInfos.xml file, if you want to search your computer's Civ 4 files for it. However, the info isn't very easy to read and parse.

You could also try to search this site for references to that file, or for "AI Personalities" or "Leader Personalities" and you'll likely get all sorts of relevant threads, some of which may be more helpful or up-to-date than others.

People have, however, taken this info and have put it into handy spreadsheets where the info is laid out in a format that is easy to read and understand. Download the file at the following location to get info for each of Vanilla, Warlords, and BtS in one .zip package:
http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=3359

For your particular question, you'd look for the "iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChange" row in the relevant file (the BTSLeaderAI_313.xls file). The number found under a particular Leader's name in that file tells you how many rounds of "10 more turns" will allow you to increase relations with an AI for. You also get +1 with the Leader right away, in addition to this iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChangeLimit value.

Said another way, find the Leader that you want to know about, look up their iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChangeLimit value, and add 1 to it. That's the max value that you can get.

As an example, I see that Bismarck has a value of 2 for the iFavoriteCivicAttitudeChangeLimit value, meaning that the most that you can get when you both share his favourite Civic is +3 in positive Diplo relations.

Despite the fact that we're playing version 3.19 of the game and the file was updated for version 3.13, I'm pretty sure that the info is still up-to-date, as later patches weren't oriented at updating the Leaders' personalities.

 

[GKey]

Thanks!
Very useful spreadsheet.
I did not find in the file how many points particular leader requires to become friendly.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Thanks!
Very useful spreadsheet.
I did not find in the file how many points particular leader requires to become friendly

Part of the design of Civ 4 was to keep each game "fresh" by changing the values that it takes for you to get each AI to Friendly from game to game. In fact, the values for one AI to get another AI to Friendly vary in the same way.

Random numbers are generated at the start of a game and the results of these random numbers are hidden from the interface, so that it doesn't become a "formulaic" and "predictable" value. The goal was to keep the game more interesting, and by the fact that we're still playing, it's certainly had an impact.

That said, some of the numbers in the spreadsheet are USED in the calculation of these hidden values, like the iBasePeaceWeight value, but ultimately, random numbers play a big role in said calculations, so the relevant values from the spreadsheet aren't all that helpful in letting you deduce the actual result--which is a good thing--if relationships with AIs were too predictable, it would be that much more boring of a game.