AU102: All we're sayin' is give peace a chance

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
KD: I have NEVER gotten that kind of trade... well done!!! I'm gonna post my AAR right after this, but I ain't got 12K+ and 600+ gpt coming in!

Strange, I seem to get very high GPT deals quite often. Maybe it's related to play style? I finished the game later this evening, ending up with 16K+ and +1900 @100% tax. I noticed that *all* the AIs built spaceship parts rapidly. I finally had a vote before Mao could launch.

Keeping the AIs from our continent was key in this game, I think. Everybody who got into an extended cultural border fight had a war sooner or later (on my first try as well). I wisened up the second time I played and didn't let anybody in by blocking the choke point early with a scout so they never explored south of it. As a result I never had anybody even annoyed, and I hardly ever gave gifts. This even seemed to be more important the the fiscal state of the AI - after all I was milking them dry, 494 GPT...

[Theseus]

I blocked the choke point too, but they still got in via Galleys.

Do I understand correctly, you have 1900gpt coming in per turn? If so, my hat's off to you.

[Theseus]

Like Aeson, my unit comparisons are absurd:

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
I blocked the choke point too, but they still got in via Galleys.

Once I got the Pyramids, the continent was settled quickly It was a close call, though, if they had gotten in a scout or if I had sold any map it probably would have been a disaster.

Do I understand correctly, you have 1900gpt coming in per turn? If so, my hat's off to you.

The year is the same as in the screenshot above, the game lasted about 15 turns longer. I still have the save if you want to take a look at the AI.

[Arrian]

Theseus,

Killer review:

* Egypt: Dear god in heaven, please don;t let Cleo come down on me. She's ahead in tech (FISSION!), and has 7700+ gold!!

* France: GW powerhouse, especially in the Middle Ages, but seems to have lost steam.

* India: Big, but not a player (sorta RL, no insult intended).

* Germany: Well, the offense versus defense thing got decided in my game at least. Bizzymarcky is a bad man.

* Iroquois: Except for their incursionary cities, I wouldn't even think about'em.

Interesting. Egypt's strength in your game probably comes down to the silks. In my game, I had them (built a city 1 square due east of Alexandria, on the silk). Hence, I had 2 silks to trade around, and Egypt did not. Over the course of the game, that adds up big time.

EDIT: After looking at your minimap again, it also appears that either Egypt or France has the spices on the far western tip, and the Iroquois may have the one in the far southeastern tip.

I'm so irritated that I didn't do a "human shield." Damn Cleo. I forgot that "gracious" doesn't mean a thing.

I noticed that Washington could have the ironworks if it was moved 1 tile. I didn't built it there, and so couldn't build the IW. Not that the IW is all that important in this game.

Killerdaffy,

I blocked the chokepoint with a scout as well, and I do think that really helped. Only 3 AI cities total on "my" land, dropped from galleys. None of them had anything worthwhile.

-Arrian

[Killerdaffy]

Arrian,

Originally posted by Arrian
Interesting. Egypt's strength in your game probably comes down to the silks. In my game, I had them (built a city 1 square due east of Alexandria, on the silk). Hence, I had 2 silks to trade around, and Egypt did not. Over the course of the game, that adds up big time.

I don't think the money comes only from luxury trading. In my game I had all of the silks and (I think) all of the spices and gave them away for free or in luxury/luxury deals (nearly always 2:1, as usual with the AI). The money that was exchanged for luxuries was therefore minimal. The result was, though, that everybody had access to at least 4 luxuries and most had more. Especially in late game, when the cities get huge and actually have marketplaces that might make the difference. Otherwise you never have that kind of money in a game.

[alexman]

I don't have time to finish both games, so I finished the killer AI one, since it was more interesting.

The journal of a hippie leader

500 A.D. The World is a Wonderful place. We get along very well with all our interesting neighbors. Sometimes our poor brothers ask for our help, and we are glad to help them. It's cute how somtimes they want us to think they will attack us if we don't give them our money or knowledge. Don't they know we love them?

560 A.D. I'm confused. Why are these men with clubs camped outside New York? Why don't they come inside and join the "We love the hippie" day celebration? Maybe they are too embarassed because they spent all their cash traveling in that galley from India. I'll give my friend Ghandi some cash to pay them immediately.

570 A.D. I still don't understand. The poor Indian soldiers now say that New York belongs to India. Can they do that? My other leader friends assured me that if I gave them more luxuries, money, and knowledge, they would make sure Ghandi realizes his mistake. I did.

650 A.D. Why is everyone fighting? Our neighbors are actually killing Indians instead of helping our cause. They say they will be very upset if we go speak to him too. But all we're sayin' is give peace a chance! And those men with clubs are camped outside Washington now. We will go see them immediately.

660 A.D. I knew it was just a misunderstanding. We are friends again. But now our other neighbors are upset. That's OK. We will give them some gifts and everything will be fine.

700 A.D. Why is everyone still fighting? Some Chinese riders asked the Indian spearmen to leave New York, but if you ask me they were too violent. Now it's Mao who says New York belongs to him. He may be right.

720 A.D. Rejoice! The people of New York have once more joined our happy empire! My guess is that they did not feel Chinese. Flower Power!

1000 A.D. This is what I'm talking about! Peace and Love for centuries!

1265 A.D. But... Joan... don't get upset. We will remove those people from our borders. You can ask, you know, you don't have to kill them! I'm sure our mutual friends will agree that you are overreacting. Especially if we give them free stuff again.

1280 A.D.Oh the horror!! Can they do that? The French longbowmen burned the great city of Buffalo to the ground!! Help! These French soldiers are mean! At least they are not very fast (mentally or physically). Instead of heading towards our undefended cities, they have been chasing our explorers in circles for years.

1365 A.D. Give peace a chance! Our agreements with our friends have expired, and Joan said she's "really sorry" about Buffalo. I said it's OK and that I shouldn't have gotten that upset. We rebuit Buffalo anyway. For some reason, Cleo and Hiawatha are still very mad at Joan. I told them that Joan apologised, but they keep saying that they will take revenge for Buffalo, and they claim as their own french city after french city. Those two are overzealous!

1540 A.D. I knew I was right. The World has recognized our hippie civilization and our flower power philosophy as the way to go. Everyone but Cleo agrees. I'm sure she'll get over it at the party tonight.

[alexman]

The reason we survived two separate sneak attacks, was, of course, the fact that we didn't share a border with their homeland.

I will post later with AI comparisons and build observations. In the meantime, here is the save from right before the UN vote.

[alexman]

Well, after looking at both of my games up to 510 A.D. (when Ghandi sneak-attacked in the killer version and spoiled further comparison) I have these comments:

Did it work?
Well, the killer AI was not especially killer, but I think it was a step in the right direction. The build decisions are mostly hard-coded, so there's only so much we can do. It's only when the decision is close that the build-often list comes into play.

For example, during the expansion phase, the AI will build settlers and military units to escort them and completely ignore anything else except perhaps Wonders. That's why their culture is initially so low. When there is no need for extra food from the harbor, they usually don't build one, even if they can't trade with anyone. They definitely build marketplaces and factories with the new patch, although I did not compare the number of factories between killer and standard, as I didn't get that far. Even with production flagged, they rarely build courthouses though, and their FP is very close to their capital.

Germany:
Production, Trade instead of Culture
Had less culture for a good reason. Apparently the science priority alone is not enough to get high culture. However, in terms of land area and power, she seems to have done better with the killer changes.

China:
Defense, Trade, Culture instead of Growth and Science
China had more culture, probably because her priority was no longer building scientific improvements (at full price), but any improvement with culture. Otherwise, she was more or less the same.

Egypt:
Happiness and Wealth instead of Culture
Egypt had more culture initially, because she was building her discounted happiness improvements, but lost ground later because of not having general culture as a priority. She was about the same in terms of Power.

Iroquois:
Added Production
The Iroquois' increase in culture is a mystery, because the only thing we changed was to add production. Looking at the map, I'm guessing that in the killer version their empire was more productive, so they built their cultural improvements faster.

France:
Added Production
France's performance was almost identical in both versions. No surprise, because the only thing we added was production.

India:
Production, happiness instead of Culture, Growth
These settings didn't seem to affect India much. She did build the lighthouse (instead of the Iroquois) which helped her be the first one to get up to speed in Tech with our more advanced continent.

Here's a side-by-side comparison of the two versions up to 510 A.D.

Top: standard, Bottom: killer.
Left to right: Map, Score, Power, Culture.

[Catt]

Hippie Sam built Washington in the start location, after moving the American scout to the nearby hill to have a quick look around. My initial build sequence (IIRC) was scout, scout, settler, temple. My overall strategy for the game was to survive until Fission and win at the UN. Failing an ability to win the UN vote (if, for instance I needed to make and break several defensive military alliances or MPPs) my fallback strategy would be a 20,000 point single-city culture victory. Washington would need to be a wonder monster.

With three or four scouts running around, Hippie Sam quickly took the lay of the land, and popped at least 5 (maybe 6 or 7?) goody huts. Most of the huts produced techs! American research (at minimum) was targeted towards Literature and the Great Library. American explorers located the northern chokepoint, and decided to gamble and block it with a scout. I was worried that blocking a chokepoint would create tensions / aggression from the north, and I really had a lot of land (great land too ) to settle south of the chokepoint, but felt that securing the choke and the nearby silks would be the right long-term move. By 800 BC Hippie Sam had explored all of his shared continent and/or traded maps with his three neighbors. France was already at war with Egypt. Some turns later, the Iroquois allied with Egypt against France.

Here is a screenshot from 800 BC – the minimap is probably most important here, although I snapped the shot to memorialize the valiant lone French warrior pillaging improvements near Heliopolis.

[Catt]

As everyone else playing this game discovered, not building any military units freed up a lot of city production for wonders and culture. Although I placed a fairly high priority on wonder construction, I placed a higher priority on building early temples (and libraries, as soon as available) so as to: (1) get maximum benefit from the 1000 year culture bonus, and (2) not risk a huge number of shields without knowing who else was building the wonders (i.e., before contact and embassies with the other continent). In 975 BC, the industrious peoples of New York (east of Washington) built the Colossus. The Germans completed the Oracle in 875 BC (a lot of good this wonder typically does for Bismarck ), the French the Pyramids in 630 BC, and the Iroquois the Great Wall in 630 BC. And then in 470 BC, the American hippies celebrated Hippie Sam’s dedication of the Great Library in Washington. New York, after a brief interlude to build a library, completed the Great Lighthouse in 130 AD. In 170 AD, American hippies across the land traveled to Washington to view the Hanging Gardens, a freshly constructed wonder of the world and a “trippy garden” according to one visitor.

I didn’t want to lose the Hanging Gardens to another civ, and since Washinton was the capital (no-palace pre-build), I had to start the HG right after receiving Monarchy through the GL. But I was pretty disappointed that I was going to trigger my Golden Age while still a despot. If I had to do it over again, I would have made more of an effort to research the Republic early enough to switch before the Hanging Gardens, but I made the simple tactical error of building the GL and then setting science to 0% - allowing my fellow civs to do my research for me. In the end, I think this set back my early game considerably. I “researched” Republic during my GA, but didn’t want to switch my non-religious government during the GA – thus I suffered the tile penalty and commerce penalties of despotism throughout my GA. I returned to “normalcy” without having completed libraries and marketplaces in all my cities, and still without having settled my entire landmass.

Hippie Sam’s first contact with the cultures to the West occurred in 220 AD. The minimap from that year is here:

[Catt]

While the American golden age continued, both Egypt and India had slipped settlers ashore via galley – the Indians to the far southwest and the Egyptians just southeast of the “silk road” chokepoint. A second Indian settler fresh from a galley forced me to build a city one tile from the cost amidst the frozen tundra south / southwest of Washington in order to secure the two spices located there – I knew the lack of coast would eliminate the prospect of long term growth for this city, but I felt securing the spices was paramount and resolved to later abandon and rebuild a city on the coast when the settler pressure eased. The Indian settler ended up moving southwest and building a second city on my landmass. The Indians built yet a third city southeast of Washington, securing a source of iron and positioned nicely to exert cultural pressure on nearby gems.

I continued on through my despotic golden age, keeping research at 0% and riding the Great Library to technology advances. In 370 AD, Hippie Sam’s America enjoyed its first peaceful culture flip when the Egyptians in Lisht (just south of silk road) overthrew their oppressors and joined the communal lifestyle. American culture far surpassed Egyptian culture (the Egyptians having been at war off and on since the mid BC years) and in fact led the world, though India was a growing cultural power. Hippie Sam’s Americans did not try to build either Sun Tzu’s Art of War or Leonardo’s Workshop, as the citizenry abhorred the thought of wonders of the world devoted to warfare. Mao of the Chinese completed Sun Tzu’s in 560 AD, and Leo’s Workshop in 750 AD.

In 640 AD a second Egyptian city, Edfu, settled near the far southwestern American spice-producing cities, joined the pure peace movement. Only a few turns later, in 670 ad, American artist extraordinaire Michael “Mikey” Angelo unveiled his handiwork in the main chapel in Washington, from that day forward know to the world as Sistine Chapel. Sadly, not all cultures practiced a “live and let live” approach to international relations. In 690 ad, before even the first German tourist could visit the Sistine Chapel, the fearsome Chinese riders eliminated Germany. Hippie Sam’s total culture lead had yielded to India (and a suspected massive infrastructure project during an Indian golden age), but India’s culture was not strong enough to prevent the peaceful citizens of New Lahore, settled near an iron deposit on the coast south / southeast of Washington, from electing to join the American way of life in 760 AD, marking the third foreign city to peacefully join Hippie Sam’s empire.

Throughout the middle ages, Hippie Sam strove to trade regularly and often with all countries of the world, and preached the benefits of free trade and peace to all who would listen. But Mao of the Chinese was not content with the Chinese lands, and regularly waged war. After exterminating the Germans, Mao turned his riders on India in 830 AD, and quickly eliminated the few Indian settlements that had appeared in the former German lands. Mao, however, made no headway against the Indian mainland.

In the late 800s AD, a French galley proceeded south along the American’s east coast, for all intents and purposes heading towards a French outpost Joan d’Arc had settled in the far south / southeast of the American lands. France and America enjoyed mutual rights of passages, an ongoing luxury trade from America to France, and a history of peace and friendly relations. Joan was, in fact, Gracious whenever she called on Hippie Sam to “set a spell.” But, strangely, Frenchmen decked out in all their finery disembarked near New York, no doubt making a pilgrimage to visit the great wonders of the world in both New York and Washington.

[Catt]

But much to Hippie Sam’s shock and horror, the French were bearing weapons and seized control of New York, denying the benefits of the Colossus and the Great Lighthouse to all of America. Hippie Sam tried to muster outrage and rally his people to come to the defense of the Republic, but he floundered about asking the stars “Why, man? Why? Give peace a chance!” The Americans, complete babes in the woods regarding all things military, couldn’t even bring themselves to field troops of some sort to evict the French; but Hippie Sam did call on his friends on the continent for aid. Hiawatha and Cleopatra promptly announced their intention to destroy the treacherous Joan d’Arc and mobilized their military forces to such a goal. Sam pleaded with them to avoid unnecessary loss of life.

Peace and love, it seems, is mightier than the sword. Only two turns after New York was unlawfully seized by the French, the citizens of New York, through the liberal application of American free love and cosmic, life-changing philosophical discussions, convinced the French soldiers to lay down their arms and “tune in, turn on, and drop out.” The city of New York returned to the American fold. Hippie Sam assumed that war raged to the north, but the Americans never saw any French soldiers approach from that direction. Cleopatra, no doubt suffering the brunt of the French aggression, made peace with Joan d’Arc after only 8 or so turns in an American alliance. Eventually, a division of French longbowmen ventured into the American countryside from the French city to the far south. Once again French marauders seized an American city, Denver, taking control of two gem mines in the process. Once relieved of guard duty by another longbowman garrison, the French aggressor marched towards New York. Not even American workers or scouts could entice the French longbowmen to alter their course. But fortune smiled on Hippie Sam and the Americans. With the French just one day’s travel from New York, the military alliance between the Iroquois and America had run its course; Hippie Sam was able to end the agreement honorably, and made peace with Joan d’Arc, paying a small sum as reparations for the wear and tear on French military supplies.

Hiawatha remained very friendly with Hippie Sam, even following the Franco-American peace. Joan’s aggression had earned her one American city, Denver, which controlled two gem mines; but it had cost her international reputation, access to certain American luxuries, and untold warfare with Egypt and the Iroquois. Shortly afterwards, China too weighed in against France decrying the intolerable and unconscionable military aggression from France – world observers concluded that Mao, a notorious warmonger, merely wanted in on the French spoils. Elite Chinese riders eventually landed on the frozen ice of southeast America. Shortly afterward, Mao’s troops razed the coastal French city. Hippie Sam, having suspected (even hoped?) for just such an opportunity, had a settler ready, and founded a new American city on the French ruins. Within a few turns, the Chinese riders captured Denver from the French, to the great joy of the oppressed American citizens.

During this time of world strife, Hippie Sam’s artisans continued their cultural journey, broadening “culture” to also include great achievements in trade and economic development. In 1050 AD, the Americans unveiled to the world an economic wonder named Adam Smith’s Trading Company, which promised to revolutionize international economics and generate substantial additional revenues for the benefit of American arts and letters. Shortly thereafter, in the American cultural mecca of Washington, JS (“Seb” to his friends) Bach brought the American people great joy with his masterful harpsichord concertos emanating from what soon became known as Bach’s Cathedral. Somehow however, despite their great learning, the Americans were unable to complete an attempted Observatory – that honor was bestowed upon Copernicus, an Iroquois scientist working in Salamanca. And through foolhardiness, incompetence or simple lack of attention to detail (the debate raged for some time) a wonder cascade triggered by the French construction of Magellan’s Voyage allowed the Indians to build Shakespeare’s Theater, a wonder that Hippie Sam and his thespians considered essential to Washington’s cultural growth. Certain American diplomats were “retired” after having failed to alert Hippie Sam that the Indians had in fact successfully researched Free Artistry and were therefore in a position to switch production from Magellan’s to Shakespeare’s and deprive the American’s their rightful claim to fame as the center of the world stage. The American science advisor was also forced to retire to an aging hippie commune after making the questionable decision to research Economics rather than beelining towards Free Artistry.

Despite the setback of discovering that the world’s greatest theater troupe had elected to set up stage in India, American cultural influence was great, second only to Indian cultural influence, and far surpassed the militaristic Chinese. In 1290 AD, the American citizens of Denver, having suffered under French and then Chinese rule, convinced their Chinese overseers to relinquish control and allow Denver to rejoin the fabric of American life. Hippie Sam, to mitigate any hard feelings among the Chinese after Denver’s return, gifted the Chinese people a steady supply of gems for some years. As if in celebration of Denver’s return, a few years later the citizens of Washington dedicated Newton’s University to the memory of the deprivations citizens of Denver bore while under foreign rule.

The Americans truly understood the power of culture:

[Catt]

The American’s remained active traders but approached non-trade-related diplomatic agreements with a strong bias towards isolationism. Mutual rights of passage with other empires were common (though not with the French), but Hippie Sam counseled against becoming entranced with foreign entanglements, and steered America away from the many offered mutual “protection” pacts. Militaristic relations, whether in theory protective and defensive, or offensive and aggressive were to be last resorts for the Americans. The other nations of the world failed to appreciate the “give peace a chance” approach and continued to make sporadic warfare from time to time. China, in particular, seemed intent on allowing no foreign cities in the former German lands.

In 1455 AD, Hippie Sam extended the right to vote to all American citizens regardless of age, sex, belief or a wide variety of other potential “gates blocking the way to true communal decision-making,” and the Americans celebrated with a monument to truly Universal Suffrage. In 1570 AD, American philosophers and scientists posited a novel theory which they called the Theory of Evolution. All scientific research stopped within America for a few years as the citizens contemplated their ancestral lineages, and pondered whether their entire universe could in fact be no more than an atom in the fingernail of a giant, otherworldly hippie. With the construction of Hoover Dam in Washington in 1615 AD, many American citizens were able to semi-retire and tend to their horticultural hobbies as American productivity surged forward.

America continued to trade with other nations, often refusing to accept more than 70% or 80% of what other nations were prepared to pay for certain commodities of knowledge. Despite many citizens’ reporting to have seen in “waking dreams” (often after tending to their gardens) a parallel universe in which other Hippie Sam’s were able to trade luxuries and technologies for hundreds of gold per turn, our Hippie Sam never got a gpt deal above about 85 or so (with other goodies too) – no other civilization seemed to have the gold to spare. Hippie Sam’s most profitable trade involved selling the knowledge of “Steel” to Mao for 2,300 gold which Hippie Sam suspected Mao had recently extorted from several other nations in the context of peace negotiations – but Mao couldn’t afford even 25 gpt – Hippie Sam suspected that the Chinese were close to running a deficit during their extended warfare.

The Americans had built an intelligence agency many years before, but never attempted to plant a spy in their diplomatic missions abroad. But Hippie Sam was dismayed to catch Mao attempting to plant a spy in Washington in 1680 AD. “Hey, Mao, give peace a chance. Just ask and ye shall receive, man.” No further espionage activities were uncovered, but Hippie Sam long suspected that foreign spies were roaming the halls of the American Republic’s government.

Finally, in 1798 AD, the Americans placed the final stone in the great building that has since come to be known as the United Nations. All leaders of the world were summoned to discuss ways in which they might better manage the world’s affairs for the betterment of all. After much debate, it was decided that each of the world’s nations should vote for one supreme leader, and that the candidates would be Hippie Sam and Mao.

[Catt]

* I made several tactical errors. Not getting to Republic quickly where I could more effectively enjoy my golden error was the most glaring / frustrating. Thinking that Shakespeare’s would be mine without worry was another.

* I switched governments once – from despotism to republic.

* I calculated that I could probably get either the Pyramids or the Great Library, but probably not both without sacrificing too much early growth (especially since I knew I couldn’t force any interloping cities off my continent). Given my fallback strategy of a 20,000 point culture city, the (eventual) 12 culture points from the GL was certainly the right choice, and it was actually quite easy to get it.

* Speaking of 20,000 culture, on the turn before I built the UN, Washington had accumulated 11,846 culture, and was generating 73 per turn. In the matter of less than 7 turns, both Washington’s university and colosseum would have reached 1,000 years old, adding 6 more culture per turn. Washington would easily have built both SETI and a research lab, meaning 5 more. I calculated that it would take +/- 90 turns to reach 20,000, or, in other words, +/- 1965 AD to reach 20K. Almost surely could have built the SS before then, assuming I had aluminum within my borders and my sole source of uranium didn’t deplete, and further assuming I wasn’t attacked.

* I was the subject of extortion three times. Once in the middle ages by China, to which I complied. Once by India in the middle ages, to which I complied. And once by India in the early industrial ages – I told Gandhi to pound sand and he was bluffing – didn’t even change his “polite” attitude.

* I built up almost 2,000 gold during the GL’s effectiveness. It was painful to rush buy improvements at 8x a shield, especially since Economics (and 4x a shield) seemed so close. But I didn’t want to get caught hoarding a lot of gold. Gee, a defenseless empire that controls 4 luxuries, multiple wonders, and has 1,500 gold laying around – what would I do?

* Taking the “silk road” chokepoint was actually a pretty tense decision – I worried it would invite attack whereas holding back from the silks might mitigate the chances of attack. I obviously ultimately decided to take the silks and the chokepoint, and it definitely worked out for the best. Because both the Egyptian and the Iroquois empires met at the chokepoint, I felt pretty good about having all three of us bottled up right there – if either of them attacked me, I would spend whatever necessary to secure the other as an ally and hopefully lose no more than the silks. Never came to pass.

* I didn’t play the game to its full potential (I’m not speaking of tactical error – I just chose to play it less “perfectly” than I could have). For instance, I hardly chopped down any forests. I planted more than a few, but didn’t chop any down. More effective strat would have been to chop down every eligible forest for 10 shields, and replant. I left a couple of gaping holes in my empire – multiple tiles just north / northwest of Washington went completely unused. I had planned to tuck another city in after expanding out to the coasts, but frankly just tired a bit of the game and didn’t bother. I didn’t create a bunch of workers and allow the railroading of an empire in a few turns – I never had more than the 12 workers with which I ended the game (although I did build more than 12 and melt some back into cities – but never had more than 12 at one time). I also never abandoned and rebuilt the “rushing to beat Gandhi to spices city” that I had to build one tile from the coast – it stayed pop 2 the whole game – just didn’t have the will to go abandon and rebuild. I built about 20 explorers from the 2 or 3 cities that could produce them in 1 turn, and used them solely as “shield transfers” from my core to the outlying cities – but it became so tedious that I finally just stopped. I ended the game with 12 workers, and (IIRC) 4 scouts.

* As I mentioned in my earliest game post, I really expected this to be an interesting challenge, but didn’t have a great deal of fun most of the time. It had its moments, and I really liked all the little touches alexman put in along the “Sam the Hippie” theme, and I had fun writing the game summary; but, also as alexman wrote, it was kind of like an OCC, but much longer, with much micromanagement, and without the fairly regular adrenaline rushes of a conventional game. I will say that before hearing from Sir Ralph about his countryman’s game, I would never have guessed that a “no military” game at Emperor was even feasible. It’s easily feasible, but also subject to a huge dose of luck – I kept waiting for the attack to come, to see how quickly I could end it, but never really got much of an attack.

* Will be curious to see the other AARs. I don’t know if we can even draw any conclusions from the “killer” versus “standard” AI. It seems (at the time I write this) that mine is the only game in which China got the upper hand on Germany.

* This set-up (was this totally random or did you configure the map, alexman?) would have been a great opportunity for Arrian’s Ultimate Power on Emperor. Taking the entire continent before cavalry would certainly have been doable.

* I was in third or fourth place on the histograph for virtually the entire game, with China and India ahead of me. Game ended at 1798 via diplomatic victory, 3500 points.

Plenty of additional screenshots and a variety of saved games if anyone is interested (PM me).

Catt

[Catt]

Looking back through the thread, it seems that Killerdaffy also experienced a big bad China. But no one else?

Also, I forgot to mention in my additional game notes, am I imagining it or have the tech costs from age to age changed changed pretty dramatically? Didn't notice quite the jump from ancient to middle ages, but the jump from middle ages to industrial caused a "reasearch ion 4, maybe 5 turns" to go to "research in 10, maybe 12 turns" and it wasn't a function of only devalued tech. Similar thing in industrial to modern - went from "4 turn research" to "8 turn research" and I was the clear tech leader. Perhaps could have gotten the modern back down towards 4 turns after building RLs in every city.

Once again, my games seem to end a lot later than others' games, even when ending by the same victory condition. There seemed to be pretty constant warfare in my game (not involving good ol' Hippie Sam of course ), but I'm beginning to believe that I simply don't push the tech research envelope the way other players do.

Catt

[Theseus]

Catt... hilarious!

I figured you'd come through with something 'on theme' as our N. California representative.

"... and pondered whether their entire universe could in fact be no more than an atom in the fingernail of a giant, otherworldly hippie."

LOL

[alexman]

California Catt! Wow, what a great story! You kept with the theme very well. I couldn't stop laughing out loud as I was reading it.

Our strategy was not that different, but the AI's power was very different. I'm afraid we will never get to the bottom of this puzzle. But I didn't get as many Wonders as you did, especially Ancient ones. (I focused instead on expansion and infrastructure - that, plus less World Wars are I think what made such a difference in our finish dates). Perhaps not getting early Wonders made the AI build more units, and hence be more aggressive?

The map was totally random, except for some resource re-allocation and some starting location reshufling. But I did generate at least 20 maps until I found one I liked

[alexman]

Cross-posted...

The tech rate has been slowed down. What used to cost 100 beakers now costs 100/0.8=125 on Emperor. In the ancient age you don't see the slowdown because everyone starts with different techs and trade them around.

[Theseus]

I can;t believe how much I paid Cleo for Fission towards the end: >7000 gold, a couple of luxuries, and Iron.

Just finished, diplo win, 1685AD, 3900 and change.

SAM THE MAGNIFICENT!!!!

Very funny... great job, alexman, on setting this one up.
_______________________

Further observations:

I think we're on the right track. One of the reasons I initially got interested in the killer AI civ question is that I HATE seeing the AI civs go through the settler expansion phase and then rest with static territory for the remainder of the game. Just as human players do, the AI civs should push and take advantage of relative strength when and where they can.

Well, in reviewing the thread, it seems that in every game one of the AI civs went for it.

I dunno the hows or whys, but it seems to be working. I'm fascinated by how the different games played out... I used to think that it was sort of a chaos theory effect from the human player's impact on the combat string, but obviously () not.

BTW, I've noticed that Iroquois was weak in pretty much all the games, but also seemed to scrabmble and survive in all of them too. Interesting.

On a separate note, I guess we all now know how important reputation can be...

Also, I noticed that Catt did the same as I, purposefully selling techs, resources, etc., for less than their full worth. How the heck would one learn that it's important not to drain the AI civs totally dry, if not for sites like 'poly and comparison games like we've been doing?

Very cool. Now it's back to extreme Civving, with MT V!!

[Arrian]

Catt,

China was strong in mine too. They just didn't eliminate Germany. Mao beat the crap out of Bismarck, but didn't finish him off. Great writeup, by the way!

I played a bit more "optimally" in that I did chop down forest like crazy, and my golden age occurred as a republic. That was huge, because I had gone all-out on expansion early on to grab all the land I could. I needed a lot of cash to rushbuy improvements.

It would seem that many others suffered AI sneak attacks, but mine was the most devastating - due to the use of Cavalry (3 moves).

As for the AI's performance, I don't see a whole heckulva lot of difference between standard and "killer." As usual, AI (and human) success was heavily dependent on terrain & resources.

My culture was #1, but many of the AI's were right with me. No overwhelming advantage there. Hence only 1 flip.

Wonders...

Colossus
Great Library
Hanging Gardens
Sistine Chapel
Bach
Newton
Universal Suffrage
ToE
Hoover
UN

I put a big priority on wonders that would help me. The only one I built which didn't have a positive effect was Univ. Suffrage. But it was there for the taking.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Great GW list... I'd be envious of that in any game.

I think that really brings home a flaw in the AI... if one of us saw an AI civ that had those achievements, heck, disregarding ENTIRELY their military strength, we'd plot and plan their downfall / capture.

Much less an AI civ that had NO military... lol, can you imagine what one of us would have done in, say, Cleo's position??!!

"Abe, have you ever heard of Cavalry? Oh sure, I'll send a demo over right away!"

[Aeson]

Great history Catt!

Arrian,

I didn't think about the number of wonders I tried for, that most likely was the biggest drain on my finish date. I made a play for every single one, which really cut down on early expansion. Going for Computers and building SETI before the UN didn't help either.

Good training for the AU wonder building game though. Learned a few things, like always time 2 cities to build their wonders at once to break up spillover chains. If I had done that right, I would have gotten all but the Lighthouse I think. Built 19 (17 of them when calling the vote) wonders overall.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Theseus
I think that really brings home a flaw in the AI... if one of us saw an AI civ that had those achievements, heck, disregarding ENTIRELY their military strength, we'd plot and plan their downfall / capture.

Much less an AI civ that had NO military... lol, can you imagine what one of us would have done in, say, Cleo's position??!!

I know. It might be hard to hold onto culturally... but no player would ever pass up such a target, regardless of how it was defended. (SETI and Wall Street are further down the list)

[Theseus]

JUICY target capture!!! Aeson, the biggest problem you're gonna have come MP, assuming you play, is that we're all coming after your GW cities!

Anyone have a clue whether SWs are captureable? (sp?) Aeson references Wall Street in the uber-Wonder city...

[Aeson]

SW's are destroyed when captured. But docking your opponent 50gpt is still a good thing!

I doubt I'd ever build a GW in MP, just been playing a lot of Monarch and Emperor games lately trying to build all the GW's without using any leaders. Usually miss out on the Oracle (and 1 or two other Ancient Wonders on Emperor) but get all the later Wonders, this was just a weird game, never been able to build the Pyramids and Oracle in the same city, they usually get built very close to each other. And then the AI's never have built up enough good production cities to compete for the Middle Age and later wonders. Might have something to do with the changed AI build preferences.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Catt
Looking back through the thread, it seems that Killerdaffy also experienced a big bad China. But no one else?

Me, for instance. China killed me, taking out or razing half of my empire with massive landing operations. They also overtook me in the powergraph close to the end, where I was the leader for almost all of the game.

[Brinoch]

After trying the Alamo, this seemed a nice... change. Peace out brothers. And, the game started out great. No complaints at all.

I moved one space over to put the diamonds in my cultural borders quickly, and I liked the thought of the Iron Works... so I cheated a bit.

My first scout popped a settler from my first hut -- oh yeah!! This was promising. I created New York quickly to start the city building rolling. Boston and Philly came soon after that. I had another settler close to building not too long after in Boston (along the coast north of Washington).

Meanwhile, I had contact with the Iroquois and the Egyptians and a scout bottleneck in place. I guess this made the Iroquois mad or something, because he came down on me like a ton of bricks. I did nothing to upset him; in fact, I made sure all deals were better than the computer offer. And, for good measure, I tried various ploys in and around the time frame to see what would happen -- nothing. No matter what I did, Hiawatha came straight on in. I even re-negotiated peace, paying him off substantially, and he declared war. I tried to lead him with scouts, but no joy there either.

So, I did get a new treaty from him, but not until Boston and Philly were razed.

Moral of the story: don't pop a settler in the first couple of turns when you can't build military. I guess it's time to try again.

Brin

[Catt]

I only had time to post my summary and quickly scan the earlier posts (but not read them through). Good job all! And I now see that big, bad Mao made appearences in several other games (not just mine).

Originally posted by Catt
* I built up almost 2,000 gold during the GL’s effectiveness. It was painful to rush buy improvements at 8x a shield, especially since Economics (and 4x a shield) seemed so close. But I didn’t want to get caught hoarding a lot of gold. Gee, a defenseless empire that controls 4 luxuries, multiple wonders, and has 1,500 gold laying around – what would I do?

Don't know when this erroneous thinking entered my gameplay. I was tooling around the editor this morning looking for an answer I asked earlier (answer below), and confirmed that researching Economics has nothing to do with reducing shield costs in gold - it simply increases the gold produced by cities building "wealth." I had answered this very same question for myself months ago (after making the very same error), but somewhere along the line I started thinking that Econ reduces the cash "hurry method" costs - to set the record straight - it doesn't.

Originally posted by Catt
Also, I forgot to mention in my additional game notes, am I imagining it or have the tech costs from age to age changed changed pretty dramatically?

Originally posted by alexman The tech rate has been slowed down. What used to cost 100 beakers now costs 100/0.8=125 on Emperor. In the ancient age you don't see the slowdown because everyone starts with different techs and trade them around.

On the tech rate, I didn't phrase my earlier question very well to get at my point. In the 4 games under 1.29f I've played, it seems to me that the reasearch cost of the first tech available in a new age is much higher than the last tech in the previous age. I don't know if I'm imagining it or if its just a fluke of my 4 games (and my research power in them). As an example, I think I researched Magnetism as the last middle age tech in something like 6 or 7 turns, with a small surplus. Steam Power took me 11 turns (IIRC) and I had to run a deficit to do it.

I looked in the editor this morning, and I think the tech costs largely bear out what I'm seeing. The research cost for Polytheism, Currency, and Construction are 12, 16, and 20, respectively. The research costs for Monotheism, Feudalism, and Engineering are 36, 32, and 36. The jump is much more dramtic from Middle Ages to Industrial Ages - almost doubling (perhaps to the new ability to railrod and increase productivity greatly?). Metallurgy, Theory of Gravity and Magnetism are 64, 68, and 68; Nationalism, Steam Power, and Medicine are 120, 120, and 100. Interestingly, the "jump" seems to largely go away as we enter the Modern Ages - Radio is 200, Rocektry is 240, Fission 280, and Computers and Ecology each 260.

Long story short is that there is a noticebale jump from age to age through the first three ages.

Question remains: Did I just never really notice this before, or have the research costs been altered under 1.29f? Anyone notice any difference under 1.29f?

Catt

[Arrian]

Aeson,

You continue to amaze me. I pride myself on my Wonder-producing abilities. But I wonder how in the hell you built the Pyramids, Oracle and Hanging Gardens all in one city on Emperor. That boggles the mind. My Washington build the GL & HG. Now it's true that you got that early settler from a hut, but I got the 2 Iroquois workers I was able to buy.

One thing annoyed me: I made no attempt at Sun Tzu or Leo's, but I still missed Copernicus. I think that's because I wanted it in Washington and failed to prebuild it elsewhere. It would have been better to build it someplace else than to lose it to the AI. My bad there.

Catt,

I think there were some minor adjustments made by Firaxis to certain tech costs. All I know is that it's a lot harder, in general, to get your research up to 4 turns/tech.

-Arrian