Washington (IC) Immortal Cookbook

[Dhoomstriker]

More comments on people's games, again made mostly just by looking at the saved games. As usual, please feel free to ignore feedback that is redundant with the comments that you have already made about your game.

@Lymond

Spoiler :

Good job on the tech pace--it looks like you are only 1 turn away from starting on Liberalism. Almost all of the AIs in your game know Paper, while some know Philosophy and others know Education, but none of them know BOTH Paper and Education, so Liberalism should be yours for certain.

Wow, that's neat--Monte owns Gilgamesh's junk City of Sumerican in your game!

I really don't like the Jungle + Rice City being placed on the only Hills square in the area, but in your favour, at least you GOT a City there!

You have definitely been whipping out infrastructure in the capital, which is a strong move on this map, as it means that you are getting good use out of our surplus Food. Some other Cities have whipped-out or built a reasonable number of buildings, too.

You have built The National Epic with the Hammers that weren't spent on Military Units, which is great. The lack of a war, though, has prevented you from spending your Hammers on a Herioc Epic for future its Military Unit production bonus.

Having started on Universities is nice, but since you don't have a lot of Forges set up, and aren't running Organized Religion, it will take a long time to build them. Still, it is clear that you are prioritizing going after Oxford Univeristy for a hopeful late-game tech lead on the AIs.

You have irrigated our grains-based Food Resources, which is nice.

I see that Monte has 3 Galleys near Gilgamesh--even if they are full, they are unlikely going to be sufficient to do enough damage to Gilgamesh. That said, if you were to later go to war with Monte, you might be able to rack-up bonus points with Gilgamesh.

What's interesting is that Gilgamesh is still Jewish in your game, although it is a bit unforutnate that you only have Judaism to choose from as your State Religion.

Gilgamesh is also a MONSTER in your game, having secured the Gems site on-continent that Pacal got in my game and having had taken over a good part of Bismarck's land. Gilgamesh is such a nightmare that probably your only chance for a successful war is going to be with a major tech lead, like by getting Cuirasseurs, Grenadiers + Cannons, or Riflemen.

Your Military is pretty small, but that fits well with you going after tech, and with your nearby neighbours at war with each other, it is more of a good thing rather than a bad thing. That said, I do fear them asking us to join the war on one side or the other and either being forced to take sides and fight a war early or end up angering both sides and risking a future war declaration before we are ready.

It appears that Bismarck is no longer talking to you and he is in a ripe position to become some AI's Vassal later in the game, potentially making for a messy situation.

You do own World Maps that you appear to have purchased, which is indeed helpful knowledge to have. It would be worth it to go and manually explore Monte's area, since he is so uptight about trading away his map intelligence (you'll need to get him Friendly with you before he'll offer up his World Map).

Actually, I am really curious as to why you are NOT running Organized Religion. For 6 Gold per Turn, you can get a production bonus in 7 of your 8 Cities, which can equate to faster Universities and a faster Oxford University, thus paying for the expended Commerce in the medium term.

Oddly enough, your Flask income at a sustainable Research Rate is not very high--it is less than 200 base Flasks per turn. So, most of your tech pace must come from having Lightbulbed a tech (part of Education), having beelined your tech selections, and having done some good trading. Still, it does suck that my game, where I thought that I'd have a terrible tech rate, actually has a higher per-turn sustaintable amount of Flasks coming in than yours does, and we haven't even switched into Bureaucracy in my game yet. I guess that really is the power of grabbing The Great Lighthouse.

I'm not a big fan of Louis being Huayna's Vassal, although that fact may come to pass in other games, it has in your game created yet a monster of an AI in Louis, who not only has support in a war but also has a ton of freebie Resources being fed to him by Huayna.

Future wars in your game are going to be big, bloody, messy affairs, but with a good chance at getting a tech lead on military techs, we can hope that most of the blood being spilled will be that of our enemies' units instead of ours.

@GKey

Spoiler :

Great work in taking down Gilgamesh!

It looks like the fact that Bismarck declared war on Gilgamesh relatively early on (80 BC) really worked in your favour. Then again, it looks like you bribed him into the war. Bismarck also appears to have captured Gilgamesh's source of Horses, making your war considerably eaiser.

Certainly, the fact that you have the world's Religion of Hinduism makes your game a lot stronger. In fact, it's almost a game-breaker, since you have 3 AIs at Friendly who will thus ignore their WFYABTA limits.

I don't really like the fact that the SW City of his, Nibru, was captured on the Gold, but at least it allows us to use some of the squares to the south of Eridu and at least your San Francisco is in a decent spot in regards to a Wheat City. So, I'll live with that minor loss of the Gold's Commerce.

It is neat that we captured the Shwedagon Paya, although there isn't much use for it at present. It's more just "a couple of free GPP" and a "pretty icon on the map."

Capturing another City from Gilgamesh might convince him to become Bismarck's Vassal (I'm surprised that this fact hasn't happened already), so it might be worth it to pay off Bismarck to declare Peace on Gilgamesh, if your plan is to finish off Gilgamesh completely.

I'm not certain if it would be better to keep or raze the Size 8 City of Zambir, so that it could be rebuilt 1 square east int eh Desert. I think the answer is probably capture and keep, partially because the City is so large, partially because it's only a Des Hills Gold and not a Plains Hills Gold, and also because you'd have to have a Settler ready within a turn after razing the City, or else Bismark's Culture would take over that Desert square and making razing the City a meaningless gesture.

You have some pretty good Resource trades going on, nice work!

Getting Hereditary Rule early on was also a nice bonus, for the Favourite Civic bonuses with multiple AIs.

Interestingly, no one has built The Apostolic Palace yet. Let's hope that Huayna isn't the one to build it, since you do have Hinduism but not his Religion of Buddhism. Alternatively, it appears that we can bribe Huayna into Hinduism, so that no matter who builts it (outside of Monte), it'll be a Hindu-based Wonder.

Even if Monte did built it, it would be alright, since we have access to Judaism, too.

You've done a good job of hanging onto Paper, with only Monte knowing it out of the AIs.

I'm not sure that I agree with assigning all 20 Experience to a single unit with your Great General for a Charismatic Leader--a lot more units could have gotten good promotions with said experience.

You seem to be lucky that Gilgamesh isn't really countering your stack, since I pretty much only see offensive promotions--your Axemen and Maceman all have City Raider promotions--you aren't worried about a Vulture attacking and thus having a City Raider unit defending? I'd suggest having AT LEAST one, if not a couple of Axemen (or Macemen) with Combat I + Shock, but maybe you've had enough momentum in the war and help from Bismarck for this point not to be much of an issue.

You've done a good job of prioritizing Great People and thus your tech pace has been pretty good. That said, your overall sustainable tech rate is pretty low, since you haven't been working that many Cottages compare to many other people's games. It's not necessarily a bad thing--it's just a different focus, and it shows that you're leveraging the path that you chose by combining Pacifism with your Specialists, while most of the others are focusing on more of a Cottage economy.

Overall, you have made good use of Organized Religion and whipping to get some good infrastructure going. Some Cities are doing better than others, but overall, it has been pretty well done.

I'm a bit confused as to why we'd build an Aqueduct in New York before completing the Forge--I would think that you'd do so in the opposite order, so that the Aqueduct could get the Forge's production bonus.

Despite the lower amount of matured Cottages than most games, the tech position is pretty good and the Diplomatic position is very solid, more than making up for this fact.

It does suck that Pacal took over some of the lands from Gilgamesh, but at least that fact allowed your Trade Routes with the east to remain uninterupted and is probably a big reason for helping to keep your economy from crashing.

There is no Holy Shrine from Gilgamesh in your game, though, which is a bit of a disappointment. Still, we can't have everything.

@Gumbolt

Spoiler :

The Great Lighthouse is a great prize indeed!

I'm a big confused as to why you settled Seattle where you did, missing the 2 Fish by the Fur + Fish City.

Good choice in prioritizing Courthouses in Monte's old lands.

It is a bit of a shame that you don't have Forges everywhere (let alone anywhere), as well as the fact that you lack Metal Casting.

The tech-trading situation isn't looking very positive, with most AIs refusing to trade with you or being too far behind (Bismarck) or too far ahead (Gilgamesh) to be great tech-trading buddies.

It is a bit of a shame that Gilgamesh took so much land before you could settle it.

You sure built a lot of units without using a Barracks. That said, the Great General could potentially give 1 free promotion to 10 units--either their first or second promotions, so all is not lost.

Your sustainable tech rate is pretty low, similar to GKey in that you've been running Pacifism and have been focusing more on spawning Great People to run your teching.

Philadelphia is working an inimproved Plains square, which should probably be switched to a Specailist or a Grassland Cottage, if we continue forward with your saved game. The same could be said for Atlanta, but if we switched away from using that unimproved Plains square, the City would stop all growth--which might be a good thing until you get a Lighthouse anyway, as the City will just lose 1 Food per turn after growing.

Chicago (the Rice + Gold City) could use a couple of more Farms, particularly one to the SE + E of the City, to help irrigate the Rice.

It seems that you are trying to spawn a Great Merchant in New York--that's a great idea to help make up for the mid-game lull that you will see in your tech rate due to a lack of matured Cottages.

While you have 8 Workers, it appears that the land is still pretty underdeveloped compared to most games. Even if you plan to eventually put Workshops on the Plains squares in Cities that are low on Food, you could at least consider putting Cottages or Farms on those squares for now. Too many Roads and not enough improvements, although it's not a major issue since most Cities are running Specialists anyway. It only affets a few Cities, so it is arguably a minor issue.

It is unfortunate that you do not have access to the Apostolic Palace's Religion of Hinduism, but relatively uniquely in your game, Louis has converted to Buddhism and so there aren't that many Hindus in the game.

Both Louis and Bismarck having their "hands full" is a bit distressing, especially with us being Louis' Worst Enemy, but depending upon who the war targets are, it could make for an interesting situation.

Monte seems to have a big stack of his own, but without an obvious source of Metal, it shouldn't be too hard to deal with. I would raze his Tzintzuntzen City, the one where his visible stack is currently located, and rebuild a City on the Coast to grabe the Clam.

There also aren't nearly as many Forests left in Monte's land as are in my game, so it will take you a lot longer to build the Forbidden Palace over there.

On that note, I think that you should prioritize building a few more Courthouses, so that you can start on building The Forbidden Palace soon, to get rid of Colonial Maintenance Costs.

The fact that a lot of the AIs know Paper isn't the greatest of situations, but you should still have an easy lock on Liberalism--just maybe not as far of a free tech as something like Rifling.

You do have Ivory obtained from Monte, which to me would suggest the idea of building a couple of War Elephant stack-defenders before finishing off Monte.

One downside to your game is that 4 AIs love Monte, so you're anger a lot of the world just to declare war on him again.

@BobbyBoy29

Spoiler :

You've definitely got one the strongest-looking tech paces.

It's also nice to see a complete monopoly on Paper.

What do you know, you ended up with the Jungle + Rice City and the Rice + Gold City anyway?

Certainly, having all of those Mines laid down has helped out some of you to pop Resources, and as you said, getting them has helped your game, especially with access to Forges.

It's a strong position to see Cities with Forges building Universities.

The National Epic and Oxford University won't be too far away.

You do lack Optics for our Whale but at least you have Compass, more than many of us can say. You even have a Work Boat "in position" to create our Whaling Boats.

A lot of the AIs like you at Pleased, so you're unlikely to be declared upon by a surprise war declaration.

Certainly, I would support a Military Tech beeline with your game, whether it be Rifling as you suggested, or Steel, or Military Tradition, but lacking both Music and Engineering, while having both of Guild's pre-requisites of Feudalism and Machinery makes the Rifling choice sound like the best option.

Your sustainable tech rate isn't the best, but it is better than the average of the games submitted.

It also looks like you've been making good use of the Great People that you have spawned.

It seems that you were asked to stop trading with Bismarck and have wisely decided to maintain that status quo, to avoid being asked again.

With Gilgamesh teching strongly and going for a Nationalism beeline, it could seriously be worth considering a switch into Confucianism, so that you have a chance of getting him up to Friendly and thus being able to get that tech in trade from him for a shot at The Taj Mahal. He's got Marble, though, and you are in no position to attack him before getting a strong military tech, so you have to seriously consider the fact that you will get beaten to this Wonder.

You'd even get Bismarck as a brother of the faith if you switched to Confucinism.

Even if you don't end up getting Nationalism, it really wouldn't hurt to pick a Religion so that you can run Pacifism. Then again, since you've already generated a lot of Great People and have started to switch to maturing Cottages, its value as a Civic may not be as important as in the games where they are continuing to run Specailists to fund their economies.

The grain-based Resources are nicely irrigated in your game.

The Apostolic Palace being built in a Religion to which we do not have access (Buddhism) isn't amazing, but at least it is a relatively marginalized Religion.

Nice view of the World Map, too! It wouldn't hurt to shuttle over a unit to manually map-out Monte's lands.

Both Monte and Gilgamesh are plotting wars... with Gilgamesh treating everyone at Pleased or above, it could mean that we are the target. Bismark is more likely to be Monte's target.

At least you've got some great Longbowmen defences in place to deter Gilgamesh from attacking and to help fend him off if he does attack. It will also make most of the world a bit angrier at whoever attacks you, although the opposite holds true for when it comes time for your Rifleman war. At that point of the game, though, you probably won't even care.

Do realize that Liberalising Replaceable Parts will require you to research or trade for Guilds and then to research Banking, so keep an eye on the AIs' tech progress if you are going to go for such a deep tech.

As long as you maintain that monopoly on Paper, even Rifling isn't completely out of the question from Liberalism.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@vranasm
Maintenance, Commerce, Flasks and Gold from Specialists, etc, all combined into one value

Spoiler :

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.

What's important when looking at Maintenance Costs, like Colonial Costs, is to observe the bigger picture.

I think an example that is often used on the forums is one's sustainable Science Rate.

People often say "it is better to have 100 base Commerce and a 50% Science Rate than 15 base Commerce and a 100% Science Rate," and I would agree with this advice.

So, the best way to compare people's Commerce Rates is to set the Science Rate slider to a point where we barely have a positive income and then check how many Flasks are being made.

To be fair, I will check the Science Rate values where a player is gaining Gold per Turn and is losing Gold per Turn, then will calculate the Flasks per Turn value as a proportional value between the reported Flask values and will round to the nearest Flask, to represent what a player would make at an income level of 0 Gold per Turn.

What I will NOT do is readjust which squares are being worked. So, a player like drlake that is temporarily focusing on Hammer output might get a bit lower value. You really need to look at the squares and Specialists worked in a particular game to get the full picture. But, since the current focus is on Hammers, we have to assume that the player had a reason for making said choice and would likely continue to work said Hammer-based squares for a number of turns, so it's as fair of a comparison as we can get... it shows us game-based examples where no one is intentionally trying to "fake" their numbers because no one (including me) knew that I was going to make this comparison.

In future, it will be hard to make these comparisons, as people will be tempted to switch their Mines to Cottages just before they upload their saved games, so we might never be able to make such a simplistic comparison (i.e. a comparison without readjusting the worked squares) again in the future.

Here are the results:
Vranasm 234 Flasks per Turn
Dhoomstriker 207 Flasks per Turn
BobbyBoy29 199 Flasks per Turn
Lymond 193 Flasks per Turn
Gumbolt 149 Flasks per Turn
GKey 139 Flasks per Turn
drlake 129 Flasks per Turn
Quaren 76* Flasks per Turn

Surprised?

Now, it should be noted that these values should not be looked at in insolation from other factors of the game--tech progress to date and other factors like the Diplo situation for future trading will also need to be considered. For example, GKey can trade nearly infinite trades in the future, unlike the rest of us, due to sharing Hinduism as a State Religion with many AI Leaders, so his lower Flask per Turn rate is actually not all that important, since he'll be able to get a ton more Flasks via trading than the rest of us will be able to.

But, it does effectively group in concepts such as how many Courthouses were built, Libraries, Markets, Colonial Maintenance, the focus on Cottages, the focus on Specialists, and other economic factors, into one reasonably-comparable number.

Note that Quaren's values are unfairly low because he's recently had a bunch of unhappiness from Defying a resolution that can be whipped away in a turn or two. Still, it is true that he currently doesn't have any Foreign Trade Routes, so addressing that situation is going to be a strong priority with playing forward with his game. I actually really like his game because of it's very strong FUTURE potential, what with us being able to get a TON of production from The Apostolic Palace, a TON of Gold per turn form a Confucian Holy Building with +21 base Gold per Turn (and more once we spread the Religion to all of our Cities and build a Market, Grocer, Bank, and Wallstreet there), and a TON of Great People from The Parthenon. So, like I said, it is completely unfair to judge a game by a single factor like sustainable Flasks per Turn in isolation, as his game has a very strong potential to be one of the better-performing games as soon as we kill off that Sumerica City between us and Monte, and after whipping a couple of Forges to get rid of his unhappiness issues from Defying. Certainly, it will be one of the most intersting games to play, having access to all of those useful Wonders as well as a fun-to-play-out war going on vs Gilgamesh (while GKey did awesomely in his war, and we're in a great position in his game, there's also not much challenge left to us in continuing to play out that war).

* Note that once we open up Foreign Trade Routes again, I estimate a value closer to:
Quaren 175 Flasks per Turn
But, we're not quite there yet in his game, since we currently don't have any Foreign Trade Routes, while getting said Trade Routes will be part of the fun challenge.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Edit: Do we still need spoiler tags?

The last time that I asked, the official answer was that we didn't need to use spoiler tags during the voting period.

That said, I am still using spoiler tags, as I am hoping that Moroktonos and Norvin_Green will show up with a submission. BobbyBoy29 didn't let us down, so I hope that these two won't, either.


Also, I wouldn't mind seeing Fierabras playing out the game until Turn 200, so as to be allowed to vote.

Spoiler :

Being declared upon by everyone isn't the end of the world if you can manage to fend off the land-assaults from Gilgamesh and Bismarck, survival is still an option, as the other AIs aren't likely to do much more than sent boats to pillage our Seafood.

Sometimes, it can make for a very educational game to try and recover from what looks like a hopeless situation.

 

[bobbyboy29]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

Thanks for looking at my save, I loved reading your round 2, again I was so caught up in the hilarious write up it was interesting to see just how well you did overall. It was a joy playing from your round one save as well, we really were in a great position, I still can't believe how solid and well established you got 5 cities in such little time!

As for your comments on my save, the first thing which is very important to mention is that I'm near certain that GILGAMESH IS NOT GOING TO DECLARE WAR ON ME! He's been plotting for a long time and I've been keeping track of his stacks. He's got a whole bunch of vultures sitting in a border city with pacal but next to no units in the border city with me so originally I thought he was going for Pacal. But he's been sending a suspicious amount of galleys up towards monty's lands. Monty just went WHEOOHRN so most likely gilgamesh will declare war on monty first and i won't be dragged in to any wars.

This will suit me just fine as it will leave both of them open to attacking when rifles come around.

As for religion, I may switch confu. eventually but like you said, the religious civics aren't going to benefit me too much and I want to keep relations with monty, Huayna and pacal reasonably friendly. Gilgamesh is my next target and bismarck is monty's worst enemy so i don't necessarily have to switch. Playing on from my save its probably best to not worry and go straight for rifling, we've got plenty of food and i've got some theatres done so may even be able to get some globe action.

As for the southern rice city I'd just like to mention that MY original location had iron in the BFC (although gilgamesh would have probably flipped it...)

 

[vranasm]

@Dhoomstriker

I agree that what matters is the way the player left his save for others to look (few posts earlier after your help i got my sustainable bpt 30 points higher with just opening borders... but that's the point, I didn't!)

For example when I compared your and gumbolt's save which both went for attacking Monte land, you were both in similar position with cities (from what i can remember, I am not by my notes). You were better off with bpts, but were severaly behind in pure tech count. And that's why I thought the gumbolt save is better.

And I see the points you made about colonial expense, but you can't exactly take whole monte's land since you pay the same for number of cities x2 as colonial expense and I think it would really kill you. Usually before state property I try to avoid aggressive taking of colonies.

Taking Gilgamesh land was better, since the pure number of cities potential stays +- the same, you get foreign intercont routes from monte, but taking monte cities gives you "only" foreign routes from gilga. So I think your economy will be always inferior, since both of you work additional specs, additional cottages etc. (the number of cities is +- the same). It's questionable if Luis+HC can compensate (number of cities and number of trades needed).

There is the TGL that scews the economic thinking a bit I admit and I am just not that good to precisely couting where is the breaking point (at which number of cities at Monte's land you go red even with TGL), for example I looked at your cities at Monte's land... they were -11gpt maintenance (1 city of those 4 was revolt, so I dunno if it already counts or not). And the city generated 4 trades around 3-4 commerce/pt. What does it mean, that to pay for such city you would have to run slider at 0%. But there are those cottages/scientist, but them GKey gets too.

 

[GKey]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

It looks like the fact that Bismarck declared war on Gilgamesh relatively early on (80 BC) really worked in your favour. Then again, it looks like you bribed him into the war. Bismarck also appears to have captured Gilgamesh's source of Horses, making your war considerably eaiser.

Indeed I bribed Bis to war with CoL, then Gilgamesh bribed Monty into war with Bis. Bismarck was (still is) weak, so I did not expect much from him. But he proved his reputation of troops spammer. Stopping these chariots from appearing did help.

Certainly, the fact that you have the world's Religion of Hinduism makes your game a lot stronger. In fact, it's almost a game-breaker, since you have 3 AIs at Friendly who will thus ignore their WFYABTA limits.

Yes, in current position I am even going to slow down a bit with trades. Could trade Optics from Maya this turn, haven’t decided yet.

I don't really like the fact that the SW City of his, Nibru, was captured on the Gold, but at least it allows us to use some of the squares to the south of Eridu

Yes, I was considering razing it, but finally decided that in current stage of game +3 workable land tiles worth loss of 6 commerce from gold.

It is neat that we captured the Shwedagon Paya, although there isn't much use for it at present. It's more just "a couple of free GPP" and a "pretty icon on the map."

True, I captured SP while I was already in Pacifism, so it has no use. Oracle will be not much of help too.

Capturing another City from Gilgamesh might convince him to become Bismarck's Vassal (I'm surprised that this fact hasn't happened already), so it might be worth it to pay off Bismarck to declare Peace on Gilgamesh, if your plan is to finish off Gilgamesh completely.

You right! Furthermore, you can not see it from save, but I’ve scouted Kish this turn – it has 0% cultural defense, means there are German catapults other side of city. It sure will be captured BT. I’m going to bribe Bis to peace with Theology and some gold this very turn.

I'm not certain if it would be better to keep or raze the Size 8 City of Zambir.

I would recommend keep Zimbir as it is. It will fight culture from Cologne anyway, easier with CS though.

I'm not sure that I agree with assigning all 20 Experience to a single unit with your Great General for a Charismatic Leader--a lot more units could have gotten good promotions with said experience.

Attaching GG to a single unit made me able promote him for free saving 179 gold, super mace is good against these protective archers on hill behind the walls. Super medic chariot helped a lot during this not easy war too. But I see your point.

You seem to be lucky that Gilgamesh isn't really countering your stack, since I pretty much only see offensive promotions--your Axemen and Maceman all have City Raider promotions--you aren't worried about a Vulture attacking and thus having a City Raider unit defending? I'd suggest having AT LEAST one, if not a couple of Axemen (or Macemen) with Combat I + Shock, but maybe you've had enough momentum in the war and help from Bismarck for this point not to be much of an issue.

Once again scouting tells me that there must be Bismarck’s stuck other side of the city thus Gilgamesh will not dare attack me. I had more then 2 combat-chock axes before, all are dead by now. Now combat mace would handle them anyway.

You've done a good job of prioritizing Great People and thus your tech pace has been pretty good. That said, your overall sustainable tech rate is pretty low, since you haven't been working that many Cottages compare to many other people's games. It's not necessarily a bad thing--it's just a different focus, and it shows that you're leveraging the path that you chose by combining Pacifism with your Specialists, while most of the others are focusing on more of a Cottage economy.

SE proved again to be strong for warmongers, especially early game, especially on this food rich/prod poor map. My economy is rather mixed then SE.
Btw not all users went explicitly cottages only economy. Gumbolt seems using mixed economy too and keeps good tech pace while pounding Monty, thus proving this point.

I'm a bit confused as to why we'd build an Aqueduct in New York before completing the Forge--I would think that you'd do so in the opposite order, so that the Aqueduct could get the Forge's production bonus.

New York was at health cap before I captured additional resources. Anyway it will reach health cap sooner then happy one. Not having slavery leads to inability control health/happy easy way, so I try to prevent future problems right now.

It does suck that Pacal took over some of the lands from Gilgamesh...

It’s not a bad thing!
Gilgamesh did not get these cities so my war with him will finish sooner.
I expect Pacal create colony there and provide us with additional trade partner.
Pity backward Bismark was not there first, but he is really slow this game.

There is no Holy Shrine from Gilgamesh in your game, though, which is a bit of a disappointment. Still, we can't have everything.

Looks like I captured Lagash too soon. It is such a great city nevertheless. I am really happy I have it. Honestly I would trade any of our cities for these from Gilgamesh.
He got such a juicy land!
And it's ours now!

 

[Fierabras]

Also, I wouldn't mind seeing Fierabras playing out the game until Turn 200, so as to be allowed to vote.

Spoiler :

Being declared upon by everyone isn't the end of the world if you can manage to fend off the land-assaults from Gilgamesh and Bismarck, survival is still an option, as the other AIs aren't likely to do much more than sent boats to pillage our Seafood.

Sometimes, it can make for a very educational game to try and recover from what looks like a hopeless situation.

Ok, I at least survived until turn 200 and have attached my save so I can join the vote. Dhoomstriker was right, because only Gilgamesh is actually trying to conquer me.

I wasn't happy with my game before hell broke loose, because it was rather unfocused. The only thing I was doing right was tech and resource trading. I recommend to NOT look at my save, because it's rather depressing

 

[GKey]

@bobbyboy29

Spoiler :

Interesting save there!


One thing I'd like to mention: race for liberalism is pretty much like race for wonder. Bringing liberalism to 1 turn of completion will cause AI not chose this tech path soon.
AI prefer other path anyway, but there could be exceptions - in my game Monty was first to paper (common dude, you are Monty, not Ghandy!).
When you have 1 turn to lib you can go other tech required for rifling or whatever you chose. In addition it makes you able trade for paper/education with less fear losing lib race.

Boston Nat Epic in 9, good job (why does it starving btw?)!

I assume you did not pick state religion yet to not piss off our lovely neighbors. Any plans what to chose?

Granted you don't run that many specs right now slavery could serve you better then CS. On the other hand I guess you going to crack specs to the max in 9 turns, when NE is finished.

Good round overall.

 

[GKey]

@Fierabras
Looks like that hindu love-fest is way more dangerous then we thought.

Good job holding your position, wasn't easy I bet.
Edit: Just mentioned your tech position. Its better then that of many of us, amazing job in given circumstances!

 

[GKey]

Regarding "Maintenance, ... etc, all combined into one value."

As you mention it does not show the whole picture. What an understatement, dude!!!

IMO, it has nothing to do with whole picture at all!

Lets say you got GS.
If you make Academy with him, you get immediate gain of like 30-40 BPT.
Even if you settle him you get some.
But what if you use him for bulb or GA?
You will not see any trail of it in current BPT situation! (granted GA already ended of cause).
It simply ignores thousands of beakers that were gained by bulbing tech plus techs you traded with it!

Looking at current BPT without looking at other parts of the picture does not make any sense.

Currently focusing on production tiles instead of cottages/running specs, change the BPT picture dramatically.

Here in Bobby's save: 9 turns to Nat Epic, so he working production tiles instead of running specs. How BPT reflects it? It shows some 20-30 BPT less. Does it reflect the whole picture, that in several turns he will start catch up with double GPP rate? It doesn't!

But, it does effectively group in concepts such as how many Courthouses were built, Libraries, Markets,

Can't agree with that either.
What if you just whipped said Courthouses, libraries, etc?
It means your cities have less population and temporarily work less tiles. You will see significant difference in BPT in comparison to others, who just about to whip these on the next turn!

I don't understand how we can judge the whole picture by only 1 part.

Diplomacy, Techs gained, Techs available to gain, land grabbed, cities developed, etc etc etc.

Any of these can be game breaking factor regardless current BPT.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

Regarding "Maintenance, ... etc, all combined into one value."

As you mention it does not show the whole picture. What an understatement, dude!!!

And I would agree. If you were to make a spreadsheet again, I would group several points all into a "tech" category, meaning that this ""Maintenance, ... etc," stuff doesn't even get its own category and would only be one portion of the "tech" category.

But, it's an important point to consider. Along with it, I would consider Great People.

A player who ran a lot of Specialists could easily take a game that ran a lot of Cottages, play for 50 turns, and generate a good number of Great People.

Conversely, a player who ran a lot of Cottages could easily take a game that generated a few Great People and grow a lot more Cottages in that amount of time.

So, the number of Great People spawned plays a role... in that if a save has had less Great People spawned, it has FUTURE POTENTIAL to get those same Great People and use them for Lightbulbing.

In fact, we even need to consider Great People that are currently "alive." Gumbolt and I both have an unused Great General at Monte, which isn't what I meant--I meant GKey's unused Great Scientist, which is "worth" more on the overall tech tree than someone who has spent theirs.

Someone who hasn't even generated their Great Scientist is not in quite as strong as GKey's situation of still owning the Great Scientist, but that save can potentially get a couple of Great People in short order, which arguably gives them a more weighting in terms of short-term future Lightbulbing capabilities than saves where we've already generated a few Great People and thus must invest more time to generate each successive Great Person.


So, my point is that tech progress can't be looked at in isolation--you also need to look at what Great People are currently available (only a Great Scientist in GKey's game, from what I saw), what Great People can come soon to "make up for" Great People that have already been used for Lightbulbing, as well as the "Maintenance, ... etc," value, which shows future potential growth in the tech pace.

Lets say you got GS.
If you make Academy with him, you get immediate gain of like 30-40 BPT.

Many of us had Academies, so I left that point out of my list. But, you're right, an Academy belongs on the list.

But then, so should Civil Service. A few games aren't running Bureaucracy, so they could equally easily get a big boost to Commerce by running Bureaucracy. For example, in Quaren's game, we can already switch to Bureaucracy, since we know Civil Service.

You will not see any trail of it in current BPT situation! (granted GA already ended of cause).
It simply ignores thousands of beakers that were gained by bulbing tech plus techs you traded with it!

The intent is to ensure that a person doesn't do the opposite and simply look at the progress in the tech tree. Looking solely at the tech progress will EQUALLY ignore the Cottage growth and infrastructure built up. Instead, we'll mostly be focusing on the effects of Great People and running a Golden Age.

Games where we haven't run a Golden Age still have that value to them--and a Golden Age can provide potentially even more Commerce and Hammers than an earlier Golden Age could, due to having larger Cities (and if we went to war) by also having more Cities.

So, the point is that it's not looking at the big picture to just look at where we are in the tech tree.

We're essentially saying the same thing--the "sustainable Flask (Beaker) rate" and the "number of techs learned" values are potentially misleading when looked at in isolation.

Currently focusing on production tiles instead of cottages, or running specs, change the BPT picture dramatically.

Agreed. However, at this stage of the game, a Specialist is about equal in terms of Flask or Gold output as a Cottage that has been worked on for a while will have, so it seemed like a relatively fair comparison on that front. As for the production-focus, I agree, it throws things off, but as I said, we have to assume that for the next little while, the player was planning on working Hammer-based squares, so it doesn't make sense to switch to using their best Commerce-based squares for a comparison if they wouldn't do so in their real game. Or perhaps they had been focusing on Hammers for a while, and thus had better infrastructure, which would get considered in the sustainable Flask (Beaker) per Turn rate.

Here in Bobby's save: 9 turns to Nat Epic, so he working production tiles instead of running specs. How BPT reflects it? It shows some 20-30 BPT less. Does it reflect the whole picture, that in several turns he will start catch up with double GPP rate? It doesn't!

Of course it doesn't. I said explicitly, especially for the games where a lot of Hammer-based squares are being worked, that you'd have to take a look at the big picture. Take the numbers with a grain of salt and look at the squares being worked and other factors, such as the one that you mention--a National Epic almost being completed--in the saves just to put some context around those numbers.

What if you just whipped said Courthouses, libraries, etc? It means your cities have less population and temporarily work less tiles. You will see significant difference in BPT in comparison to others, who just about to whip these on the next turn!

If you'd just whipped those buildings, then you'd have whipped away your Specialists or your Cottage-working citizens. Around this stage of the game, without Representation-based Specialists or without Towns for our matured Cottages, the whipping away of those citizens will roughly balance the net gain from the infrastructure, so I would argue that in this particular example, at this stage of the game, you'd see a similar picture just before and after whipping.

The same would not be true if you'd just whipped a Forge, where you would indeed see a drop in Flask or Gold output from your Scientists or Merchants or a Commerce drop from your Cottage-working citizens that were whipped away.

I don't understand how we can judge the whole picture by only 1 part.

I don't think that I said that we should do so. The intent of my message was to argue against judging things from only 1 part.

Diplomacy, Techs gained, Techs available to gain, land grabbed, cities developed, etc etc etc.

Any of these can be game breaking factor regardless current BPT.

The last two items--land grabbed and cities developed, will be somewhat factored into the "Maintenance, ... etc" value.

To your list, I would add: Great People already used up, Golden Ages already used up, Great People sitting around available for use, Espionage points available for tech stealing, and all sorts of other factors.

I simply tried to take a few of the large amount of variables and combine them together to hopefully help to make some sense of one portion of all of the factors that should be considered. Similarly, looking at the F6 tech screen can help to combine a different set of the large amount of variables, such as trades made, Great People spent, Golden Ages used, Commerce earned from Cottages, Flasks and Gold earned from Specialists, Gold earned from capturing Cities, and more.


The more that we learn to think critically about these different aspects of our games and the more that we come up with heuristics (fallable methods of looking at a problem) for judging them, the better we will become at judging how well we are doing in our games. Well, that's my opinion anyway.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@bobbyboy29/GKey

Spoiler :

One thing I'd like to mention: race for liberalism is pretty much like race for wonder. Bringing liberalism to 1 turn of completion will cause AI not chose this tech path soon.

I agree. In fact, by bringing Liberalism to within 1 turn (or 2 turns if you are prone to forgetting to switch away from Liberalism on time), you also gain the flexibility to take "at least some prize" of a tech.

It's better to get SOME kind of a free tech than no free tech, even if it wasn't the one that you are beelining for, and having Liberalism "almost" ready to be completed will let you take such a tech in an emergency situation where an AI Lightbulbs part of Education and is suddenly 5 turns away from learning Liberalism.

in my game Monty was first to paper (common dude, you are Monty, not Ghandy!).

That's hilarious, man!

Boston Nat Epic in 9, good job (why does it starving btw?)!

I would even go so far as to say: fire the 2 Scientsits working there, temporarily steal the Wheat, and work a Wheat and a Grassland Cottage in order to grow the City. Maybe even turn that Grassland Cottage into a Grassland Farm, since you are specialising this City as your Great Person Farm.

Once the National Epic is in, it will be far more costly in terms of lost GPP to grow the City and stop working Specialists than it will to grow the City before the National Epic is complete.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

@Fierabras

Spoiler :

Ok, I at least survived until turn 200 and have attached my save so I can join the vote. Dhoomstriker was right, because only Gilgamesh is actually trying to conquer me.

Congrats! You deserve a hearty round of applause!

Certainly, your game isn't in the best of positions, but you played it out, managed to defend your lands, and even got Peace with Pacal, the main instigator of this mess!

Peace with the others should only be a matter of time (and possibly giving up a tech or some Gold--I would not suggest giving up Cities for Peace though).

Since you were not the one declaring war, relationships will improve over time.

War Elephants--the enemies having them and us not having them--are probably going to be too decisive of a factor for us to benefit from continuing the war. Without them, I'd say make Peace with everyone but Gilgamesh whenever Peace becomes and option and then give Gilgamesh a beating. But, with War Elephants involved, Peace with even Gilgamesh will probably be best.

You have some good infrastructure and got out a couple of Great People, which is great.

Your tech progress is pretty decent, too, especially considering the war situation.

I believe that the game is salvageable and winnable.

As long as you make peace with one of the AIs that are running the Apostolic Palace's Religion as their State Religion once every 9 turns, they should be unable to propose the "War against the Infidel" resolution. Certainly, if you could make Peace with all of the AIs running the Apostolic Palace's Religion as their State Religion before then, you could do so, too, since they also won't be able to propose that resolution if all of the AIs with the Apostolic Palace's Religion as their State Religion are at Peace with you.

 

[Fierabras]

@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

Your analysis is correct. I managed to survive for 10 turns of total war and made peace with Pacal for 125 gold on the last turn. Oddly enough Monty did not sent over his caravels (my main reason for resigning at 235 AD) and some mini-stack to harass me.

Before the war I managed to generate some great scientists by actually running Caste System. I was on my way to maces by teching Machinery and was enjoying my trade routes and resource and tech trading game.

In the last 10 turns Gilgamesh lost a lot of units (vultures and swordsmen) by trying to capture my gold mine city. I noticed the war elephants as well, because I was thinking that after making peace with everyone else, I might actually turn it around and mace Gilgamesh to oblivion, but against war elephants it would be a little harder.

Anyway, my save is worse than the others, so I won't expect getting points this round, but I look forward to playing round 3. "This time, it's personal."

 

[GKey]

@fierabras/@Dhoomstriker

Spoiler :

I have avenged you, dude!

 

[GKey]

So, my point is that tech progress can't be looked at in isolation...
...The intent is to ensure that a person doesn't do the opposite and simply look at the progress in the tech tree. Looking solely at the tech progress will EQUALLY ignore the Cottage growth and infrastructure built up...
...So, the point is that it's not looking at the big picture to just look at where we are in the tech tree.

We're essentially saying the same thing--the "sustainable Flask (Beaker) rate" and the "number of techs learned" values are potentially misleading when looked at in isolation.

Agreed. None of these factors in isolation can present clear picture.

On the other hand your point regarding potential of not yet used Great People etc is not entirely correct IMO. Potential will become lost opportunity if not used in time.

Around this stage of the game, without Representation-based Specialists or without Towns for our matured Cottages, the whipping away of those citizens will roughly balance the net gain from the infrastructure, so I would argue that in this particular example, at this stage of the game, you'd see a similar picture just before and after whipping.

Can't agree with that.

I don't know how and when other players used whip. But in my case, as mentioned in previous posts:

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.

That means I whipped all my cities for 2-5 pop. Here, take a look:

Spoiler :

See that "mountain" at the end of graph? This is exactly that. "Up hill" - start of GA - assigning all citizens to most production/commerce output. "Down hill" whip cities, assign citizens to regrow.

So I am looking at Washington in your save and mine.

Yours: 12 pop ~112 BPT overall after modifiers, Academy built, no Buro yet.

Mine: 9 pop ~68 BPT overall after modifiers, no Academy, GS asleep, with Buro.

Luck of population after whip plays significant role. I would say that massive whip costs me like ~90BPT overall and will take some turns to be cured.

There are many other factors. AFAIK colony upkeep kicks after 4th city, that will be indicated both in city maintenance and inflation. GLH will compensate most of it. Monty-dead worth it anyway.
Diplomacy is a real game breaker here IMO. Inability to trade with advanced guys will drag us back severely.

 

[Dhoomstriker]

See that "mountain" at the end of graph? This is exactly that. "Up hill" - start of GA - assigning all citizens to most production/commerce output. "Down hill" whip cities, assign citizens to regrow.

One problem with whipping and looking at the production graph is that by whipping and working Food-based squares instead of not whipping and working production-based squares, you actually get as much or more production (depending upon how many good production squares you have available to work).

So, you actually got a ton of up-front production by whipping. I'm not sure how the graph works and whether or not it counts the whipped production or if it glazes over it, but surely a drop in production doesn't mean that you get less production overall.

Where you'd see the loss is in your Commerce or Flasks/Gold from Specialists, but again, it depends upon how the GNP Graph works--I'm not sure how it works. If it only measures the base values, then it won't show you as much as you're really getting from running Specialists or working Cottages in Cities with Multiplier buildings like Libraries, Markets, Academies, etc.

The money saved by having a Courhouse can easily counter-balance the loss in Gold or Flasks from the citizens not working Cottages or Specialists. Similarly, the extra Flasks from getting a Library from the remaining Commerce/Scientists that didn't get whipped away, to me, has a good chance of also making up for the temporary loss of population.

Sure, you can believe that once you are "back up" to your original population value pre-whipping, you'll be better off Commerce-wise or Flask-wise... I am just estimating that at this stage of the game, whipping for 2 or 3 population points can potentially equal the amount of Commerce/Flasks lost by what you gain with getting the building immediately.


Besides, that production graph looks like it is a natural progression upwards, when we ignore the Golden Age period.

Yours: 12 pop ~112 BPT overall after modifiers, Academy built, no Buro yet.

Mine: 9 pop ~68 BPT overall after modifiers, no Academy, GS asleep, with Buro.

Luck of population after whip plays significant role. I would say that massive whip costs me like ~90BPT overall and will take some turns to be cured.

It could also be the timing of when we chose to build our infrastructure. I built a lot of mine earlier, which meant that I had less Military Units earlier for a longer-term payoff on things like my Forge.

I haven't looked at the saves again and I have to run out the door very shortly, but I imagine that Trade Route income is playing a sizeable differentiating factor here and the maturity of the Cottages probably also plays a role.


I also agree that delaying getting Great People for too long will be a "missed" opportunity instead of a delayed one.

There are many other factors. AFAIK colony upkeep kicks after 4th city

I think that it is known to get bad after the 3rd City, even. Building The Forbidden Palace on Monte's continent should remove Colonial Maintenance costs completely.

Diplomacy is a real game breaker here IMO. Inability to trade with advanced guys will drag us back severely.

That I would agree with.

While my game might make for a strong Space game, since the AIs can help to bring us along for a tech ride, your game is far better for Diplo than anyone else's. And your game, as well as some of the other games where the AIs' tech pace is relatively backwards (the opposite situation as my game), will have an easier time at Domination or Conquest than my game will.

Quaren's got us all beat for an Apostolic Palace Victory path.

 

[Fierabras]

After carefully considering all the saves this time, my vote for round 2 is as follows.

1. GKey

I have avenged you, dude!

I think GKey has made the best overall progress and maybe I'm a bit biased by my own game, he certainly avenged me. And although

@Fierabras
Looks like that hindu love-fest is way more dangerous then we thought.

I think it will be interesting to see who will build the AP and what will happen next.

2. Quaren

Less Sumerian land, but better wonders captured and a lot of precious metals popped. I almost placed this save as nr.1 because of that, but I don't like to vote for luckiest.

3. Gumbolt

Nobody likes Monty and I like TGL.

 

[bobbyboy29]

@dhoomstriker/GKey

Spoiler :

Thanks for all the comments guys, its a big help. Just on the main things you mentioned about my save. With regards to getting within 1 turn of lib, yeh that's something I normally do and I was planning on doing it in this game as well, it was just that given all the cottages I've got I figured I should get PP first so then I could research lib and the rest quicker.

With regards to Boston and its starvation, this may have been an error on my part, basically I was trying to get NE built ASAP so that meant working the plains cottages. But I didn't want to turn them into workshops as later the capital can work them I believe. You guys are right though, i should have fired those scientists whilst building the epic but its not that big a deal.

In terms of why i'm in caste. While i'm not using it at the moment I was up until about ten turns ago when I was farming out GS's for lib in Washington and 1 other city and I will be using it again in 9 when NE is up. I was considering temporarily switching to slavery and back to whip those uni's out but didn't want to take the anarchy (oh to be spiritual!)

Finally, with regards to religion, I'm pretty happy being chummy with everyone in NSR for the moment. I haven't focused on spreading any particular religion so i'll probably just wait and go FR later, the happiness will help me deal with unhappiness caused by the draft.

 

[drlake]

First, some general comments on how I reacted to each save:

Bobbyboy: What I wanted my save to look like. Got the rice/sugar site before Gilg, and managed to gain and maintain the tech lead. Gilg and Monty are WHEOOHRN, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they are targeting each other. Monty is ripe for conquest, being well behind in tech (but Eng and Trebs would make it easier).

Dhoom: War with Monty in progress and going fairly well, though I’d probably try to extort techs from him for peace. I don’t like the fact that you haven’t teched archery yet, since that is preventing use of HAs. Tech position isn’t good, but I suspect it can be salvaged. Gilg/Bis war is useful.

Fierabras: Successfully held out against the attack, situated to make peace, and unlikely to lose any cities. Tech situation is OK, though not great. Cities are generally well developed, so could manage a renaissance war (or take out Monty?). Really not as bad as I thought it would be from Fierabras’ reports.

Gkey: Great position, with Gilg basically done, Monty diplomatically isolated and vulnerable, and a tech lead.

Gumbolt: War with Monty went well, but colonial maintenance is killing the tech rate atm. Tech position OK, diplomatic situation iffy (most of the world isn’t happy with Washington). Never hooked up the Iron?!?!

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.

Quaren: Good position overall. Tech situation is decent, diplomacy is workable (gotta change out of Judaism to improve this), war with Gilg is going OK.

Vranasm: Doing OK, but overall position isn’t great. Able to win the Lib race, but need to get that Iron hooked up ASAP. Diplomatic situation looks OK, but some cautious AIs would make me nervous.

OK, so for voting I went with what I would want to play from, which is not necessarily the strongest position.

1) Bobbyboy: It's a strong save and what I wish I had managed to execute.

2) Quaren: Early in the war with Gilg (relatively), this is also close to what I'd played, though done better than I did, and what I was planning to do in the near future.

3) Gkey: The overall strongest position, IMO, but I'd actually rather play from one of the others first.


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.