AU 106 Spoilers

[Jawa Jocky]

I played Persia on Emperor with the standard.bic

I had bad luck right from the start. My 1st warrior ticked off some natives and got killed. The remaining barb came down to my Capital and killed my 2nd warrior and destroyed my 1st settler durning construction. A few turns later and the same thing happens again (ouch). I believe this qualifies me for the "Worst Start on AU 107 Award".

Here was my starting strategy.

1) Set science to max (w/o wasting gold) and beelined for literacy. I figured it would help science and would be a cheaper 1st build to get culture.

2) I was also rexing to fill out my island and building 1 warrior and 1 spear for every city (I needed the MP since I had no temples).

3) After libraries I built temples and beelined for currency to get marketplaces.

4) Beelined for Republic and changed govt.

5) Beelined for construction since most cities were around 6.

6) At this point I reset science to 4 turns and went for some lower techs and built up gold reserves.

7) beelined for universities and banks.

Around 1400 I made contact with some passing French. Did some diplomacy and yada yada yada. My poor start and questionable science routes resulted in NO wonders. The French, Iroquis, Egyptians are ahead in tech (I'm about the normal amount behind for me). The Greeks are huge and way to strong to attack. I have my choice of taking Germany or Japan (both really far away).

I have lost interest in this game. My AU 105 late game is exactly how this game will play out for me, and I don't really feel like repeating it. I had a lot of fun until contact so it was certainly a worthwhile endevor

[Catt]

Originally posted by nbarclay
When I switched to Republic, my capital was able to go to size twelve with the happiness slider at 30%, and I'm pretty sure several other cities did as well even before I got the tech for colloseums. (The fact that at that size, my cities were invariably working a few coast, river, and/or wine tiles helped.)

Wow! That's more than I ever would have expected -- I need to experiment with the luxury slider (maybe it is much more powerful in the ancient age).

I did the same calculations as you -- i.e., Monarchy on Emperor means 6 content in ancient age (1 born, 1 temple, 3 MPs, 1 lux) -- I figured with the HG I would have a free ride to 7, with the HG-building city at 9. By the time my cities could get to 11 or twelve I would have the opportunity to build colosseums (since I needed Construction for aqueducts).

Comparatively, I figured with Republic on Emperor I would be hitting the luxury slider at pop 4 (1 born, 1 temple, 1 lux) and would need to beeline fairly quickly towards Construction to get colosseums. I "by-the-seat-of-my-pants" figured that I would be spending an awful lot on entertainment spending to keep even moderately-sized (size 6 -8) "wonder-capable" cities around -- I was obviously wrong if you got up to 12 with a 30% slider.

Slight change of subject and to repeat a question from my earlier spoiler: Has anyone done any tests to determine whether a happy empire enjoys a shorted anarchy between gov switchs? SContinued silence will be interpreted as a "no." I was really surprised with a 3-turn anarchy from Mon to Rep, and may go back and fidlle wioth happiness (by selling improvements, etc.) to see if the anarchy length moves in any other than a random fashion.

Catt

[Dominae]

I would like to echo Theseus' comment about the variability between AI civ strengths in our games. Although there are some clear trends (Egyptians wiping out the Chinese), a lot of games look really different by the time contact is made.

Is this variability entirely due to randomness in combat, or does the AI make random decisions? It would seem to me that, for example, attacking a neighbour is assigned a probability (based on a bunch of factors we can all guess at), so it is never a sure thing.

What do you think?


Dominae

[Catt]

Originally posted by Theseus
As a republic, I got pretty much all of my towns / cities to their max size fairly easily... the cost however, was that I didn;t really have much WLTKD until I started kicking medieval age butt. If I remember, at 10-30% luxury, with colosseums, cathedrals, and marketplaces (in that order, as soon as available):

Towns: 2 happy, 3 content, 1 unhappy
Cities: 4 happy, 6 content, 2 unhappy

I also definitely had money troubles, but that was my own fault for building such as massive standing military under Republic, and possibly from the later than normal marketplaces.

So it seems that you didn't have much of a problem either.

Although you mention cathedrals as well - I was going to be comfortable in a Republic with cathedrals which I figured was free ride to 8 (1 born, 1 temple, 3 cathedral, 2 colosseum, 1 lux) - selective use of the luxury slider could take care of a few more ensuring no riots in designated super-production cities. But I really wanted to get out from under the despotism tile penalty as soon as reasonably possible, and just didn't think I could do it satisfactorily before having at least colosseums and preferably cathedrals (although I did not want to wait until completely exiting the ancient age to make the switch).

I may go back and play the opening with a beeline for Republic to see a comparison.

Originally posted by Jawa Jocky
I had bad luck right from the start. . . .

That's a terrible string of luck JJ and I am not surprised that it essentially left you well, well back in the pack. Significant hits in the very early game are crushing.

At least you had the additional pleasure of listening to a fussy baby's screams while you yelled at the monitor .

Catt

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Theseus
AI civ performance is so different in these games!!

You are right, next time I'll do better research before going out drawing conclusions from about two games...

I just checked: Anarchy time for my switch from Despotism to Republic was 4 turns, regardless of whether all cities were happy or nearly all rioting.

Originally posted by Catt
I may go back and play the opening with a beeline for Republic to see a comparison.

I managed to get a 3-tech-lead at contact (960AD, compared to Egypt, more for the rest) in my game but I wonder whether it had more to do with the early switch to Republic (250BC) or the GA immediately after the switch. But one way or the other it would be hard to do on Monarchy.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Killerdaffy

I just checked: Anarchy time for my switch from Despotism to Republic was 4 turns, regardless of whether all cities were happy or nearly all rioting.

Cool, thanks.

I managed to get a 3-tech-lead at contact (960AD, compared to Egypt, more for the rest) in my game but I wonder whether it had more to do with the early switch to Republic (250BC) or the GA immediately after the switch. But one way or the other it would be hard to do on Monarchy.

What level did you play KD? I think your contact at 960 AD has everyone beat by a mile! Good job and great write-up.

Catt

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Theseus

Olaf, I think you may have simply overextended yourself... to the point where 1) you couldn;t do enough to get attacked AI civs back into good diplo relations, 2) you couldn't build enough to have a happy and productive empire, and 3) as a result, you couldn't keep up in tech, nor build enough military to hold onto your spoils... then you got into a negative spiral, where each loss / weakening tipped the balance in favor of the AI civs feasting on your ragged position. Have no fear though, I'm sure you can find a way to break out.

I agree that I overextended by not focusing on one enemy at a time, but I wouldn't be to sure about the rest.

1) I have not started a single war. They started them all, sometimes when they where polite with me. 2) All my cities have been fully developed since late medieval. Factories then came quickly in my GA triggered by Suffrage. The only thing I haven't built are coal plants, but I intend to get Hoover any turn. 3) All my mainland cities have been building units since I researched military tradition. The reason I have a tough time holding on to my outposts is that they are spread on five continents. In retrospect, it would have been better to focus on one continent at a time.

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Catt
Cool, thanks.

I don't know if this will hold for any case, we should check this out more thoroughly. I just learned again about drawing conclusions from a two game sample (eh, confidence level something like 10%??)

What level did you play KD? I think your contact at 960 AD has everyone beat by a mile! Good job and great write-up.

Catt

I always play Emperor. The majority of the people in this thread waited to be discovered, to make the most of the GL. I wanted to use the cheap universities, so I went Education immediately. Also, I got the Colossus, Pyramids and had my GA the turn I entered Republic in 250BC (I had to slow my building of the GL for that). After the GA I had all core cities built up with Libraries, Temples, Marketplaces & Aqueducts (in that order). That gave me an edge early on, even though some people might more than make up for that with a later, better timed GA.

Just checking out the game as Romans, since hardly anybody tried this so far.

[Theseus]

Olaf, I didn't mean to knock your skills ( ), I was just trying to develop a theory of why everyone hated you.

KD, I also am impressed by your game. I think those of you that went hard for Navigation made the right call.

Catt, I seem to remember (in the dusty halls of, oh, the spring ), that the period of anarchy was suspected to be determined by 1) happiness and 2) foreign nationals. I don;t think anyone has developed a full understanding of it.

[Theseus has visions of "The Fundamentals of Anarchy" or "Everything you wanted to know about anarchy" ]

[Catt]

Originally posted by Killerdaffy


I don't know if this will hold for any case, we should check this out more thoroughly. I just learned again about drawing conclusions from a two game sample (eh, confidence level something like 10%??)

Oh I won't take it as definitive, but it's interesting to note as one data point. I'll play with my game a bit and see if it varies.

I think the real test would need to be done with a saved game with "Preserve Random Seed" off and under a wide variety of circumstances (different empire sizes, different nationalities, different unahppiness reasons, etc.) -- much more than I want to bite off and chew.

If there were any correlation I suspect it would be easily exploitable - jack up the entertainment slider for a turn before the revolution and boom! shorter anarchies. This would strike me as a pretty big loophole / exploit.

Catt

[CorpusScorpius]

I did a replay as the Persians (19citites) on Monarchy(mod) & tried for a Space Ship victory. I was in the tech lead up until MA & the French, Iroqouis,& Greece (the monster civ) caught up & surpassed me(2 different replays).
The first replay, that damn french woman achieved a space ship launch in the early 1500's & i had only built about half of the Space ship parts. Once the AI got ahead in techs they Bogarted them but swapped techs with each other like lovers. ( I guess Xerxes was NOT Attractive) Espionage stunk up the joint Blew 12000 for nothing

The second replay went a little better, (built 8 space ship parts) but the Casino Man was the first to launch also in the early 1500's. My one tip for trying to achieve A space ship victory would be to research the bottom half of the Modern Age Techs first, the AI seems to like the top half.

[CorpusScorpius]

I also didnt wait for first contact & outresearched the AI until the Modern Age.

[Dominae]

Well, I've finally finished this game, sadly with a whimper rather than a bang. I'll give a brief description of my my end-game, and then a list of things I learned by playing AU-106.

My Cavalry forces reach their peak size in 1500AD and I easily overrun the Greeks, conquering about 2 cities per turn until they're completely banished from their original (relatively huge) continent in 1545AD. I decide to try abandoning most of the cities and rebuilding them with Persian Settlers to avoid flips. This opens a few patches of land for the Egyptians and Iroquois to steal, but they eventually fall to my superior culture. I use the suggestion I heard on another thread and build my FP on my main continent, and rush build the Palace on the Greek continent (located in the middle of the crescent-shape).

At this point my Cavalry units are itching to fight (or is that me?!?) so I look for somewhere else to conquer. Since the French are slightly ahead of me now in tech, I decide to ship all my forces to the continent South of the main French and German landmasses, which Joan has recently claimed. I don't have any trouble conquering this continent either, but the choice turns out to be a bad one. The new cities are hopelessly corrupt, and they didn't seem to be helping the French much previously. I should have guessed that the Egyptians were the real contenders and forced them into a war-time economy.

Once I get Democracy, I feel that playing for builder for the rest of the game is a good idea: I control most of the world's land mass, and have access to numerous luxuries (and hopefully all strategic resources). I disband/sell almost all my military units/buildings and focus on research. This is 1695AD, and I'm 2 techs behind the Egyptians and the French who have just discovered Steam Engine.

The next 200 years are uneventful but excruciatingly long. With the help of the Theory of Evolution I pull into a 3-tech lead, which I keep until the end of the game, more or less. I'm in complete control of the game, but I foresee that a Spaceship win will take at least another hour of play. I try my chances with the United Nations, even though everyone hates me, even after I tech-gift them into the Modern age. The votes are cast: 2 for Egypt, 1 for Persia; inconclusive. I've had enough and choose an early retirement. 3000 or so points.

I've included my game just before I build the UN. If anyone feels like letting me know how to post pics (more specifically, what software you use), I'd appreciate it.


Things I learned specific to the AU-106 scenario:

1. It is possible for the secluded human player to keep up with the AI in tech on Emperor level. How well one keeps up is (I assume) highly dependent on how secluded the other civs are. I imagine had all the other civs been on the same continent, this game would have been a lot tougher.

2. The AI doesn't "realise" it's secluded. When I first contacted the Germans, they had Militiary units aplenty but no one to send them at. Given that the human player can figure out they're not going to meet anyone for a long time and act accordingly is a huge advantage.

3. A start position that is secluded on a smallish island is actually quite fun, and certainly not impossible. The key to sucess is to cram as many cities onto your main continent as possible, something which I did not do (I'm getting better, but I still don't like too much overlap with my cities). This is obvious from my early-game performance: although my pre-contact strategy mirrored Killerdaffy's almost exactly (beeline for The Republic, beeline for Navigation), I only managed to make first contact in 1260AD, a good 300 years after Killerdaffy. I attribute this entirely to the number of cities on my mainland, which was only around 9-10. With a few more, I'm sure my science would have been a lot more better.


Other things not necessarily related to the scenario:

1. Building the Palace away from "home" is often a better idea than building the FP. Thanks for those who pointed this out to me: it's a great strat!

2. Coliseums are great for pre-building if you've got Cathedrals and the Sistine Chapel in place; they cost quite a bit, and so you can use them to pre-build almost anything, from Universities to Factories.

3. Keeping the AI civs away from each other for as long as possible is really useful. Since (as I've been corrected) a tech only devaluates according to how many civs you've contacted know it, keeping civs away from each other allows tech-trading at high cost. There's a lot more strategic pluses to keeping civs apart, which I'm sure have been discussed before so I won't post them here.

4. Immortals are good right up until the Industrial era, making their name quite appropriate! I always knew the Immortals were good, but never knew just how long-lived their usefulness is.


Well, overall this was good learning experience. I can't wait to try the "always war" scenario next.


Dominae

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Theseus
Olaf, I didn't mean to knock your skills ( ), I was just trying to develop a theory of why everyone hated you.

I did not take it as an offence. Surely they hated me in the late game for recently being in war with them, but why did they declare war in the first place? They said they were polite but then backstabbed me on the same turn.

By the way, I decided the game was lost and restarted as Persians on emperor. Doing pretty well so far. Republic established in 350 BC (my quickest ever). I also seem to expand faster than the AI. Here is a screenshot from 975 BC. But you never know... My Roman monarch game looked excellent until I was backstabbed and had to change plans for the rest of the game.

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Dominae
3. A start position that is secluded on a smallish island is actually quite fun, and certainly not impossible. The key to sucess is to cram as many cities onto your main continent as possible, something which I did not do (I'm getting better, but I still don't like too much overlap with my cities). This is obvious from my early-game performance: although my pre-contact strategy mirrored Killerdaffy's almost exactly (beeline for The Republic, beeline for Navigation), I only managed to make first contact in 1260AD, a good 300 years after Killerdaffy. I attribute this entirely to the number of cities on my mainland, which was only around 9-10. With a few more, I'm sure my science would have been a lot more better.

As you can see here (1020AD) I didn't have many more cities (12, one of them size 3). The Pyramids got all of them to size 12 very quickly, though, and the GA provided the infrastructure to go with it. I worked nearly every tile of that island since BC:

Olaf,

350BC for Republic is very good. Did you beeline for Republic or get Literature (cheap libraries) first?

[Dominae]

Killerdaffy, I got Pyramids too, and worked every tile pretty fast. However, I only had 9 cities. I think that can make a big difference. Also, I'm out of Civ-pratice, so I'm pretty sure you did some things are lot more efficiently than I did.

In any case a 920AD contact date is quite impressive. Good work!


Dominae

[Killerdaffy]

Originally posted by Dominae
In any case a 920AD contact date is quite impressive. Good work!

Oops, I'm already inspiring legends!! It was 960AD for Greeks and English, I still haven't discovered Egypt in the screen shot above (1020AD). They were just too far away and nobody else had navigation yet.

[De Gaulle]

Settings: Persia, Monarch, standard bic.

I am a big fan of these AU games where I always learn about some interesting strategies... and how I could have done much better in my own game...

But for once I seem to have followed a unique approach, which might sound counterintuitive to most: I chose to NOT contact most of the AIs upon being the first to discover Navigation.

The rationale: achieving the largest tech lead possible by denying the AIs the research "boost" coming from knowing a civ which has a particular tech.

Quick overview of the game:
1) Built 17 cities on the island, aiming for covering the largest amount of coast possible for maximum trade (research) and working every tile ASAP.
2) No waste of money: minimal troops, no barracks until Sun Tzu and Navigation.
3) Beelined for: GL, then Republic, Construction, Currency, Monarchy.
4) Built Colossus for extra trade and then GL, hoping for free techs later on (as everybody else).

I started suspecting something was strange (I expected to fall waaaayyyyyy behind) when I was able to pick up the HG easily. It triggered my GA and I spent the next 20 turns mopping up techs at 4/turn with a 250gpt positive cash flow.

Middle Ages:
1) Went for Sistine Chapel immediately.
2) Took the southern route to Military Tradition (with negative cash flow) to avoid Education and to be able to conquer additional territory from my closest neighbor asap.

Tried for Sun Tzu and Leonardo half-heartedly and got them!

At that point I realized that I shouldn't wait for somebody to discover me... I beelined for Navigation and made contact around 1250AD with the English. Their spearmen defending their cities plus the occasional pikeman were not an issue for the 15 cavs I sent over.
Upon contacting the Greeks I was shocked to see how far behind they were (6-8 techs). I remembered a forum discussion mentionning the tech cost decrease obtained by simply knowing a civ with the tech and I tried to increase my lead to the maximum by denying contact/trade to the AIs.

It is 1405AD, the greeks have just sent their first caravels and made contact with the egyptians, which in turn contacted me.

The greeks being the first to poseess Navigation, it is fair to assume they are likely the most advanced AI civ. But racing ahead allowed me to be ELEVEN techs ahead of them (screenshot): Printing Press, Economics, Chemistry, Physics, Theory of Gravity, Magnetism, Metallurgy, Military Tradition, Nationalism, Steam Power and Industrialization.

SO.... My question is:
Is Monarch just so easy (I usually play regent) compared to Emperor/Deity or can it actually be useful to maintain an isolationist stance if you think you are ahead?

[De Gaulle]

OK, here is the screenshot...

[De Gaulle]

And the Top5 cities with the minimap of the time.
Sorry for the multiple posts, I don't know how to paste several screenshots at once...

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by De Gaulle
SO.... My question is:
Is Monarch just so easy (I usually play regent) compared to Emperor/Deity or can it actually be useful to maintain an isolationist stance if you think you are ahead?

A lot depends on the situation. If you have contact, you can gain from trades with seven or so other civs (depending on how many die before you meet them) while each AI only gains from having one additional trading partner. Depending on how much advantage you can get out of your trade deals, that may or may not offset the advantage the AIs get from your already knowing the tech they're researching. (One of the neat things about this game set-up is that you can get high "only one other civ knows it" prices for the same tech from two or three different civs - if they can afford to pay.)

Philosophically, I have a fairly strong preference for maximizing my own nation's prosperity rather than hamstringing myself in the hope that in the process, I'll hamstring my rivals even more. So my favorite deals to make are tech-for-luxury deals, hopefully pursuading the AIs to throw in some gold as well. That gives me WLT?D empire-wide, lots of happy cities to boost my score, and some trade income to help speed up my next research.

I went for contact as quickly as I could (England in 810 AD and all civs contacted around 960, and that without using up my golden age) but I certainly haven't assisted any of the AIs in contacting each other. That lets me trade with the AIs while still preserving the advantages of the AIs' difficulty in trading with each other, so I can still maintian a large and growing technological lead. And entering the industrial age in 1190 AD on this map - thanks in part to trading for Feudalism, which I'd deliberately delayed researching in the hope that I could trade for it - is nothing to sneeze at.

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Killerdaffy

Olaf,

350BC for Republic is very good. Did you beeline for Republic or get Literature (cheap libraries) first?

The only side-step from the early research path was Ceremonial Burial to get temples. I disabanded ALL military units and did not build any new until it was time to start shipping them offshore. Happiness was controlled by setting the lux slider to 30%, which could be reduced to 20% after building colosseums or cathedrals. I built Great Library just to deny it to the others and went straight for Navigation. I am now a few turns away from it in 850 AD.

[Jawa Jocky]

Originally posted by De Gaulle

Is Monarch just so easy (I usually play regent) compared to Emperor/Deity

Monarchy is just that easy when your using the right strategies (like close city placement ) It looks like you need to say goodbye to the lower levels.

[vmxa1]

Monarch is not hard to win, but being way ahead in tech at that point is unusual. I would wonder if you had 8 civs and if they were some what isolated from each other. Normally I would expect the civs to have traded around and be ahead of me when I made contact. With no leaders, due to no contact, no wars, I would expect to have maybe 3 wonders, maybe 4. A super location for the capitol or 2nd city could allow you to do some great wonder making, along with an early GA, I could see doing even better. Lots of land masses with large amounts of water would slow them down.

[BillChin]

I abandon my Deity level game as Persia. I defeated the Germans, and am well on my way to conquering Japan, when the Greeks declare war in 1848. They have modern armor and mech infantry and no one else in the world does. I get everyone to ally against them. I make a mistake and Greek marines land and burn on of my best cities and I do not have the heart to continue.

It may be a winnable game or the Greeks may be far along on spaceship construction. They already have U. N., SETI and the Manhattan project. I am researching Radio.

Any invasion of the Greek continent requires mass naval and air support and masses of armies. A D-day style invasion of an advanced opponent might take 40 or 50 turns to prepare for. 40 or 50 turns of sluggish turns because of all the units and AI combat with little to look forward to until I am ready to invade. The initial landing beachhead might have dozens of Modern armor, a similar number of jet bombers and Mech infantry thrown at it.
- Bill

[Theseus]

Finished. 1918AD, 2785 points, diplowin.

Nothing great to report... My Cav Horde just steadily took down Greece (Alex is my bee-yatch!!), while I got into the tech lead in the industrial corridor. I took one pause in the attack, having taking control of the eastern horn, but in the next 'big push' I pressed through until I had full control of the continent; WW was just starting to become an issue, but I finished off the attack with only 3-4 turns at 40% luxuries. Alex, da fool, ended up with an OCC on the island south of "his" continent. I had two separate alliances with Toku against Alex... the Japanes never captured any cities, but they had a massive Frigate / Ironclad fleet, and they bombarded the CRAP outta western Greek territory.

(Note to newer players: it's been said before, but a reminder... overwhelming force, especially with Knights, Cavs, and Tanks, is basically unstoppable. I had 90+ Horsemen waiting for the Knight and Cav upgrades... unleashing them put Alex into Hades, even though he was the big dog up until that point.)

Other than me , the really impressive civ was France... not only did Joanie do a great job of taking control of all three islands, but she nabbed ALL medieval GWs except Bach, Leonardo, and Smith (which I got). I was tempted to divert the Cav Horde to France instead of Greece for the GWs, but I knew I could do a better FP / Palace layout locally.

The Iroquois should have done much better... early in the game, they had 9 towns to Japan's 6, and approximately equal quality land. Instead, they got wiped out. I hope that adding offensive units to build preferences in the AU Mod helps.

I wasn;t at war with anyone towards the end, so I just set up MPPs with all civs except Japan, who I knew would be the other UN contender... worked like a charm.

Biggest lesson learned: I should have pushed through Education to Navigation. Yeah, the GLib gambit worked out OK, but contact and Universities would have been better.

The second lesson was as I wiped out Alex from the western horn... I made it a real point to follow destruction and razing with immediate new towns. No way was I gonna let some @$@#$%$# AI civ drop off a settler or two and intrude on my new continent!

Only one screenshot that I liked; nothing special, but it put a smile on my face!

[De Gaulle]

Nathan: You are obviously right about taking the risk of harming yourself more than harming the AI in denying them contact/trade in most games. And this particular game is most likely the ONLY case where I think you can get away with it, and even benefit from it (at least temporarily). Let's trash this bad idea for good.
I just wanted to see how far ahead scientifically one could get by using (abusing?) the special features that this game provided. And it was the Science game after all...

Jawa: Thanks for the encouragement! I guess it is time to move up. Oh well, I'll have to get used to being the underdog again.

VMXA1: I also expected to be way behind... China was the only civ to get wiped out in the ancient age. As for the others, the Greeks seemed to be the first to master Navigation after me. I guess contact is just being made at the time of the screenshots.

My personnal guess about what worked so well for me to get all the wonders, bare pyramids and great wall, is a greater speed of scientific discovery. I think it was due first to the Colossus and all my coastal cities and then to my beelining for Literature. I immediately switched all my cities to building them. After that, the next wonders I got (HG and Sistine) enabled my towns to grow much larger than those of the AI, hence giving me the advantage for good. Any subsequent wonders (Leonardo, Sun Tzu, Bach, Copernicus and now Adam Smith) lowering further the fixed costs of my cities allowed me to really get ahead.

As for having super-production cities, well... I didn't really... That's why the wonders are in 4 cities (in the screenshot) with Adam Smith to be completed in the 5th one next turn.


On a general side, I would agree with a comment made before saying that the game was easier than normal. Certainly NOT because it wasn't setup properly (Thanks Vulture for doing a great job!) but because we humans altered dramatically our playstyle to take advantage of the specific features incorporated while the AIs did not...

[vmxa1]

It has been awhile since I played a sciene civ so maybe i will take one and do std Deity tomorrow. I do not expect to have all those wonders though (sigh).

[Theseus]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Philosophically, I have a fairly strong preference for maximizing my own nation's prosperity rather than hamstringing myself in the hope that in the process, I'll hamstring my rivals even more.

Lesson learned. The best games in this thread all followed said principle.

In fact, the more I think about it, pursuing the GLib strategy in this game was akin to simply buying techs... Cheap? Yes. Allowed a focus on other priorities? Yes.

"Break a cycle" and get ahead? No.


De Gaulle: You are more than ready. There is no spoon.

[nbarclay]

When I was talking about maximizing my own nation's prosperity rather than hamstringing both myself and my opponents, I was speaking entirely in terms of how I handle trade. The question of whether to place a bet that the AIs will out-research you, in which case the Great Library tactic is fantastic, or to bet that you can keep up with the AI in research, in which case going for Navigation quickly can be more useful, is an entirely different issue. As things worked out, no AI cluster had enough AIs with enough good land (and enough peace) to make up for the advantages in focus we human players had. But that could have gone differently.

And my policy of trading tech for luxuries is more a matter of philosophy than of cold calculation. I like to think I generally get enough benefit to make up for what the AIs get out of the deals, but I've never run the numbers to verify that. Much of my bias comes from a background pursuing quick space race victories (and, before that, quick Alien Life Project victories in CTP). And much is just a matter of the role-play aspect of the game: passing up an opportunity to make my people a lot happier just to stretch out an already large tech lead doesn't feel right for a leader who cares at all about his people.

Nathan