WOTM 04 - Final Spoiler

[Erkon]

...Carthage and Huayna simultaneously declared war around 1400...
...1634 AD, 11 turns from building my spaceship and what did Hannibal do? Yep he suddenly declared war.
2. Why does war weariness affect you immediately someone else declares war on you? That happened to me on Hannibal’s final war declaration, and I’m sure cost me some population. Shouldn’t war weariness only affect you when you start the war (or you’ve been prolonging it)?

When the second war starts, you will revert back to the WW you had at the end of the first war with Hannibal. I have experienced this numerous times, although I don't know how much of the WW from that specific AI is sustained.

I read a post from the Deity SG by Mutineer that WW is increased when you loose units on tiles where someone else has more cultural influence than you. And since tiles have memory, it is not enough to have the tile within cultural border. Again, I don't know the details (could someone else please add their thoughts?).

Since it is quite easy to trick the AI into a war with you, it would became a loophole if WW affected the agressor only. And how would the game know if you prolong the war?

The agressor suffers already since captured cities have the happiness penalty from citizens that belong to the pre-owner.

2. What causes global warming? I was under the impression that in Civ4, only nuclear weapons could cause global warming, yet twice in my late game I encountered messages that global warming had hit some city. Noone had even built the Manhattan project.

Did any AI city have a nuclear plant meltdown?

By the way, thanks for the write up . I always look forward to your colourful and honest stories

 

[Gyathaar]

1. When do Praetorians go obsolete? I’m sure at one point I found my cities could build grenadiers …. or praetorians. Weird, huh?

I already answered that in the description of praetorians in pregame discussion and saves available threads

 

[ngraner42]

How the mighty fall. Thought I’d include this screenshot of the powergraph of how Hannibal’s military collapsed in his attack on Harappan. So much for more intelligent AI with the 2.08 patch…

Amazing, I have never seen a power graph drop like that other than when a civ is being eliminated.

I came to the same conclusion regarding the warfare skills of the 2.08 AI. In WOTM3 it appeared that the AI was more skillful, but rather it was just that we were behind the development curve. If the AI has a lot of extra units they will counterattack vigorously, whereas a human player will counterattack vigorously regardless.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

I already answered that in the description of praetorians in pregame discussion and saves available threads

Ah yes so you did. Rifling That explains it, thanks Gyathaar! I didn't research rifling till very late. IIRC, I hit plastics for the three gorges dam, then computers for laboratories, then robotics for the space elevator, before researching rifling (and yes, I did discover that I still couldn't build the space elevator coz you need satellites too. Duhhh!). Since the AI always builds tons of riflemen, I invariably find grenadiers a lot more useful than riflemen anyway.

<pedant mode on> btw I don't think civil service is quite correct for swordsmen going obsolete is it? That would imply if you research civil service before machinery, you get a point where you can't build swordsmen or macemen. I'm guessing they actually go obsolete at the point where you hit all the requirements for macemen?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Amazing, I have never seen a power graph drop like that other than when a civ is being eliminated.

Indeed. It really got me that that happened entirely through me defending (well, I think he lost a few units to the Americans too). It was quite frustrating actually, I had spies in his territory and could see that his cities just behind the border that his marauding fighters were based in were now very lightly defended, I could've taken them easily, but that would've immediately triggered a domination win... He had another big stack in a city on his far border, but for some reason never brought it to the battle.

btw on the subject I noticed another interesting thing with the game that I never noticed before: Once you're at war, your spies can't use the other civ's roads and railways any more.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Since it is quite easy to trick the AI into a war with you, it would became a loophole if WW affected the agressor only. And how would the game know if you prolong the war?

Agreed on the first one, though I'm sure you could have checks on the usual factors (eg. potential for war weariness goes up if you refuse an OB request, make a demand on another civ, or bribe another civ to war). Prolonging war check I guess would be if you reject another civ's offer of peace, if they're not demanding something for it. It certainly seems to me unrealistic to immediately suffer war weariness if they've obviously declared on you out of the blue.

The agressor suffers already since captured cities have the happiness penalty from citizens that belong to the pre-owner.

That would certainly explain why my cities near the front got more unhappiness (I assumed it was geographic, but of course those cities were ex-Carthaginian ones).

It was irritating anyway. I had lots of cities carefully timed to expand in population just before my spaceship was complete, the war weariness largely killed that; I suspect it lost me around 1000 points on my final score (100 on base).

Did any AI city have a nuclear plant meltdown?

I dunno, I often miss notifications. I do recall my spies noticing that Inca was building a nuclear plant or two, though I didn't pay too much attention (I was more concerned about looking out for them building the Manhattan project or building any wonders that I wanted). My spies between them were checking out every city every 4-5 turns though so I'm sure I would've noticed immediately if a meltdown caused any fallout tiles (does it? I've never seen any reason to build nuclear plants before, so have never seen what a meltdown does).

By the way, thanks for the write up . I always look forward to your colourful and honest stories

Thanks! Sorry this one wasn't as colourful as previous writeups (I find it's a lot easier to put an amusing spin on games when lots of things go wrong, but not much went wrong for me in this WOTM. Well other than that several people built their spaceships faster ).

 

[lroumen]

I originally went for Diplo. Finished UN in 1410, but Asoka always voted for Wasington, although having more favourable relations with me. Can somebody explain me what is in the equation there.....?? Power must be very important, as that's the only lead I didn't have.

Interesting question. I'd like to hear some explanation on this as well.
It probably has something to do with trade relations.

 

[Gyathaar]

<pedant mode on> btw I don't think civil service is quite correct for swordsmen going obsolete is it? That would imply if you research civil service before machinery, you get a point where you can't build swordsmen or macemen. I'm guessing they actually go obsolete at the point where you hit all the requirements for macemen?

I guess.. they go obsolete when you can build macemen.. so Civil Service and machinery

 

[Vynd]

Marathon and the Victory

All I can say is – I’m impressed at the people who got their spacerace victories in faster than I did. Towards the end of the game, I was raking in over 3500 beakers/turn in science. It was incredible: Mass media took I think 3 turns to research (at this point I was just accumulating techs to add to my score). Flight was 4 turns. On marathon too! I also managed through careful management (and advanced building of laboratories) to get the time between completing the Apollo program and completing the spaceship down to just 33 turns. I think on marathon speed that’s not bad going! Yet several other people still managed to get faster spaceship wins! (presumably, less conquering initially contributed).

I think I built my spaceship in 30 to 40 turns, comprable to what you achieved. However my late game research speed was nowhere near as fast as yours. So any difference in our space race speeds must be down to research earlier in the game.

My guess is your space race was slowed by a limited ability to make tech trades. In my game I made many, many tech trades with Asoka and Mansa Musa. I did some trading with Washington and Huyana Capac as well. In your game Mansa and Asoka were dead, and Washington apparently hated you. So there couldn't have been much trading going on.

In my game I was able to turn every tech I researched into two other techs (until the end game when Asoka and Mansa got all "We'd rather win the game, thank you very much" on me). In your game, I'm theorizing, you had to research almost everything by yourself, and even with a superior research rate you weren't able to match what could be achieved by tech trading.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

My guess is your space race was slowed by a limited ability to make tech trades. In my game I made many, many tech trades with Asoka and Mansa Musa. I did some trading with Washington and Huyana Capac as well. In your game Mansa and Asoka were dead, and Washington apparently hated you. So there couldn't have been much trading going on.

In my game I was able to turn every tech I researched into two other techs (until the end game when Asoka and Mansa got all "We'd rather win the game, thank you very much" on me). In your game, I'm theorizing, you had to research almost everything by yourself, and even with a superior research rate you weren't able to match what could be achieved by tech trading.

I think you've got it spot on there As I recall I did almost no trading at all, and had to research everything myself. Early on, I simply didn't pay enough attention to it as I was so focused on warmongering - I think that was a mistake on my part. By the early ADs, although my economy hadn't collapsed it was far enough behind most of the AI's that there was little I could give in trades. About the time I vassaled America, I wasn't too far behind, but I think vassaling America was a mistake (I mostly did it because I've never vassaled anyone before, and I was curious to see what you could do with it - the answer seems to be 'not a lot' if your vassal remains furious with you): It immediately dropped Huayna from pleased to cautious and Hannibal from cautious to annoyed, so neither would trade. Then by 1200-1300 I was drawing so far ahead of them in techs thanks to all my cottages that their refusal to trade was irrelevent anyway - they had almost nothing to give me! (Except a few military techs that wouldn't have helped me much anyway)

 

[Gnejs]

Just for fun, I replayed this game as a one-city challenge.

Researched BW-Wheel-IW-Sailing and stopped there. Stole an early worker from Brennus and built one myself after 3 work boats and a barracks. As soon as I hooked up Iron I built nothing but Praetorians.

Celts were eliminated 1720 BC.
Mali eliminated 620 BC. Those skirmishers were troublesome. Had a squad of workers building roads through the wastelands, took some time.
America eliminated 240 BC. Much easier than Mali.

Declared on Carthage 30 BC. Razed 5 cities but ran into longbows and made peace for a couple of techs and some money.
Declared on India the turn after, 200 AD. Razed all but three marginal cities. However, I had spotted a couple of Incan stacks moving towards Rome. If this had been for real I would have kept some troops stationed in Rome to stop the Incans when they attacked. As it was, my 2 praetorians couldn't defend Rome against a decent number of horse archers and catapults.

End game in 830 AD. 38 cities razed, still lost. Had something like 2000 gold at the end, so I probably should not have stopped research after sailing.


Despite Rome never working more than 4 tiles I managed to eliminate three civs and bring two other to their knees. On emperor.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Despite Rome never working more than 4 tiles I managed to eliminate three civs and bring two other to their knees. On emperor.

I think your next challenge should be to see if you can conquer all civilizations with your initial settler and starting warrior, without founding a city

 

[Mutineer]

You must have been very lucky on start.
My first 2 Praets die to unpromoted archers in 20&#37; cultural defence city.

 

[Gnejs]

I think your next challenge should be to see if you can conquer all civilizations with your initial settler and starting warrior, without founding a city

Sure, I promise to do so on the next WOTM at settler difficulty...

Seriously, I think my experiment showed just how favourable this map was to the player. A very powerful unique unit, a great capital site with plenty of food and great production, Iron in the fat cross. And not to forget, Marathon speed.
The only thing holding Rome back was happiness. One or two extra cities to grab a couple of happiness resources might be enough to almost double production. That in turn might be enough for a conquest victory.

 

[Alraun]

Continuing from my earlier post...

I was at 9 cities and felt I needed a few more to go for my Space Race victory, so I declared war on Mansa Musa in 470 AD. After declaring war, my economy dropped quite a bit. Hmm... cutting off those foreign trade routes is bad, especially when you have the Great Lighthouse! It was at this time that I started building some Catapults to help my Praetorians.

I captured and razed Tadmekka in 480AD, as I wanted to move the city a little bit, since it was too close to Ravenna. I captured Niani in 524 AD and quickly made peace because this war was hurting my economy way too badly. I considered the idea of maybe starting it up again later after I got Astronomy and didn't have to worry about the trade routes, but that ended up never happening. I did end up getting 1 city and 2 city spots out of it though, so I was relatively happy. By 620 AD I had founded my 12th city. From this point on, the game was mostly about teching.

Tech order: Education > Liberalism > Astronomy (for free) > Printing Press > Nationalism > Constitution > Democracy.

It turns out I would have probably been better off trading for Nationalism and Constitution as Mansa Musa got them each around the same time I did. Ahh well, I haven't played Space Race on this high level, so I wasn't sure and didn't want to delay getting those civics from Democracy too long! Normally at this point in the game, I avoid making the Great Library obsolete for as long as reasonably possible, but this game I was more concerned about the Great Lighthouse since I had 8 coastal cities. I tried for the Taj Mahal and the Statue of Liberty, and I got the Statue but not the Taj.

Chemistry > Steel > Traded for Sci Method > Physics > Traded for Rifling > Electricity > Radio > Trade for Corporation, Steam Power, Communism & Railroad > Computers > Traded for Assembly Line, Combustion > Industrialism > Traded for Fascism > Artillery > Rocketry > Sattelites > Biology > Traded for Plastics & Fission > Robotics > Fiber Optics > Traded for Mass Media > Fusion > Refrigeration > Genetics

I saved the trees in one of the cities I built after the war with Mansa Musa to rush the Apollo Program because that city had a lot of plains and plains hills anyway (along with a cow and a gold), so I could only get a limited number of cottages there anyway before Biology. I ended up getting a Great Engineer from Bibactre, at which I had been running a lot of specialists of different types. I used this along with another (scientist maybe?) for a Golden Age. The Engineer from Fusion I used to finish the Space Elevator in Rome. At some point, I moved my capitol to Ravenna, which is where I also built Iron Works and like 3 different space ship parts. In the end, I won with a space ship victory in 1530 AD.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Seriously, I think my experiment showed just how favourable this map was to the player. A very powerful unique unit, a great capital site with plenty of food and great production, Iron in the fat cross. And not to forget, Marathon speed.
The only thing holding Rome back was happiness. One or two extra cities to grab a couple of happiness resources might be enough to almost double production. That in turn might be enough for a conquest victory.

Interesting, I don't think this map was particularly favourable to the player though (other than the fact of being on marathon speed?); rather, I think it favours having few cities (easier to defend a small empire) - but even then, only EITHER if you are sufficiently skilled at using tech trading to keep up on emperor level against civs that are bigger than yourself, OR if you make a point of using the praetorians to conquer from a small base (I think your experiment falls into the latter one of those )

In fact, I think the map contains a significant hidden trap for the unwary: The fact of being Rome, and the easy availability of iron, makes it very tempting to just go instant conquering, and capturing/holding cities, but the isolated position of Rome at the far end of a narrow peninsula means that distance costs mount up a lot more quickly than on a 'typical' map (if such a thing exists ) so it's far easier than normal to trash your economy. Even taking out Brennus is dangerous for your economy; the next Civ, Mansa, is miles away, with relatively few good city sites in between.

On a related note, I am intrigued by the profusion of 16th and 17th century spaceship victories. A quick glance at earlier GOTMs at a similar level shows that the fastest spaceship victories achieved were all 19th century ones:
1870AD in GOTM04 (emperor, india) by MiniMe
1819AD in GOTM09 (emperor, Inca) by Godotnut
1815AD in GOTM10 (immortal, china) by Toller Pretzl (game generally considered to be easier than 'typical' immortal due to extremely favourable start)

What's giving here? I'm not sure the early victories quite imply 'easier for the human' since one or two spoilers' comments are giving dates for the AI being in the spacerace that seem as early too. There doesn't seem to be anything about this map that looks particularly favourable to science for everyone? Is it because of the marathon speed (but for spacerace, the connection looks rather weak to me) The only other plausible thing I can think of is the Warlords patch is making the AI far faster at teching, and the human player is indirectly benefitting via trades? Or perhaps the overall civ-playing skill level advanced since August

 

[RobertTheBruce]

It was my first full marathon game and I thought I had a pretty good diplo time as well but its really only average. I think the marathon time scale is seriously different from epic or normal so years can't be compared. Epic is only 50&#37; longer than Normal so the normal to epic comparisons work a bit better.

Looking in the Hall of Fame for Emperor Space Race Games on a Standard Map. This is apples to oranges with different players and maps but still ...

Quick - 1922AD
Normal - 1922AD
Epic - 1890AD
Marathon - 1695AD

I think marathon has a very different time scaling. They would need half years between 1900 and 2050 to have twice the number of turns as epic during that era. If you say 1750AD on marathon is equivalent to 1900AD on epic normalizing to the turn, then the final turn/max turns agrees better than the final year.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Looking in the Hall of Fame for Emperor Space Race Games on a Standard Map. This is apples to oranges with different players and maps but still ...

Quick - 1922AD
Normal - 1922AD
Epic - 1890AD
Marathon - 1695AD

I think marathon has a very different time scaling. They would need half years between 1900 and 2050 to have twice the number of turns as epic during that era. If you say 1750AD on marathon is equivalent to 1900AD on epic normalizing to the turn, then the final turn/max turns agrees better than the final year.

Thanks Robert, I thought on first reading your post that would've been it, but checking against Civ4GameSpeedInfo.xml seems to show it's only a minor factor.

On normal speed a 1922AD finish means finishing on turn 332. So all other things being equal, that should be equivalent to finishing on turn 498 on epic and turn 996 on marathon.

But if my calculations are correct:
Turn 332 on normal = 1922AD
Turn 498 on epic = 1888AD
Turn 996 on marathon = 1846AD

Of course all other things aren't quite equal. There is the issue on marathon that you warmonger faster coz your units move faster relative to year, but I wouldn't expect most spacerace victories to include that much warmongering. Also, building units is, in effect, 33% faster on marathon, which presumably has some impact (not quite sure precisely how it'd impact it, since the AI gets the same advantage). Could those make up the extra roughly 150 marathon turns difference? Obviously they do, the results show that, but I'm struggling to see by what mechanism they can have such a big impact.

 

[ngraner42]

I checked the beaker calculation formula as posted in the strategy section and marathon does require 3 times as many beakers as normal to research a tech, as you would expect. The answer may be that with low sea level and the inexpensiveness of units, leading to fast expansion simply generates more beakers. This would mean that the greater maintenance is more than offset by the extra beakers. The fact that on Emperor the AI experiences reduced relative maintenance cost could add to their having more techs available to trade quicker; quick AI expansion would increase the effect. This is one area of the game that is still very unclear to me: What is the optimal rate of expansion, and what is the optimal empire size for a space race victory.

 

[Jenarie]

I'm a warlord level player who just (one unfinished game ago) moved up to noble. This game was WAY over my head but after finding the forum last night I couldn't pass up trying it just for fun.

I learned a lot which was the main goal for me. HUGE difference in upkeep costs at the higher levels so I got to experience my first STRIKE!

I was terrified at the start of being trapped in there with no metals so settled more cities then I should have (5 - should have probably been 3) trying to block out some land from Brennus. I kept three of his and razed the others but that still left me really negative and I really wished I hadn't founded at least one of my originals.

I got so incredibly far behind that I had to screenshot this since I think the good players have probably never seen this:

I had thought for a while that if I could stay friends with Mansa I could go for a cultural win (figured I'd lose to someone else getting space but at least it would be worth the attempt) but finally realized that I was so far behind in tech I'd never even discover a tech until the wonder for it was already built somewhere so gave up and retired. Considering the jump in difficulty level I was actually happy to have just taken out Brennus and still be alive (although granted with that start if I hadn't been able to it would have been sad).

Really enjoyed reading all the spoilers. I'm learning lots so thank you all