AU 106 Spoilers

[Chemical Ollie]

Man, is this a great game or what?

I am replaying the game as Persians on emperor. Perhaps a little "cheaty" to play on a map you know, but it's as another civ and on a higher level, so it's still a new game.

Some major events:

350 BC: Republic up and running with the help of 30 % lux slider.
330 AD: Great Library built just to deny it to others. Never used it.
500 approx: Forbidden Palace in a city 6-7 tiles north of capitol. 16 cities built on my mainland.
980 AD: Contact - they are way behind.
990 AD: Sistine
1000 AD: Settled on the island north of Greece. Not totally corrupt!
1200: Bach's
1200: Settled on the Incense field. France soon joined in. I got 4 cities there before they blocked the rest.
1260: Copernicus in my capitol
1260: Contact with the Egypts (the last). All 8 lux hooked up.
1290: Magellan
1300 approx: England asked for help against the Greeks who where about to overrun them. I said yes to get a good excuse to conquer. Trade deal with Greece recently expired anyway. England was soon overrun and entered the history books.
1370: Leo built. Upgraded all my troops and sailed to Greece. 21 cavallery and muskets landed. Greeks have only swordsmen and hoplites. This is where the I will start from.


I have been researching at 4 turns/tech with plenty of +gold since navigation. Iroquis are at a slight score lead with me close behind. Iroquis are 2-3 techs behind me, the others civs much more. I expect to go industrial within 10 turns (1400 AD approx).

It's peculiar that my monarch game felt like deity, while my emperor game feels like regent. But now I know all the special tricks that are useful on this particular map (but would fail miserably on other maps). Anyway, I have only seen one emeror game where I was better, and that was as Iroquis on a large continent map, where my mounted warriors made vassals of the poor AI:s. In this game I am outresearching and outbuilding them by myself.

[BillChin]

After losing my Deity level game as Persia playing the mod rules, I try again as Persia. This game is quite different from the first go round. The first time, contact came around 1250 A. D. as I wait for the Great Library to take effect. The second game the French contact me around 850 A. D. after I research Education.

In this second game, I build banks and universities. I am still far behind in tech as I meet all the civs. By the time I have ships to sail, both Greece and France have riflemen. Leaving me with the choice to attack the weaker civs. In any case, the end game looks like a similar path with very strong Greeks, though at least the French can give them some competition in this second game. I doubt I will play it through as the fun part is over.
- Bill

[De Gaulle]

Nathan: I agree that trading is of the utmost importance in nearly all games. The rationale for increasing your tech lead to the maximum through trade denial is just that it almost guarantees you the victory of your choice. If you can pull it off, that is. The possibility of building nearly all subsequent GW to improve your economy, the possibility of taking over a neighboring civ with units 1 whole age ahead (e.g. Tanks vs musketeers). Being a fanatical builder and utterly inexperienced warmonger (CivII heritage...), I need these kind of odds to be able to win militarily...
It might have to do with my building very few units. I just hate building a military unit when there's universities or banks available... That's why I need the tech lead (or ressource advantage), so that I can transform my small overwhehlmed force into the overwhelming army advocated by Theseus.

I find it interesting that you view your citizens with commiseration, and do try to be a generous leader. I usually have the same attitude (never razing, very little pop-rushing, happiness improvements just for the sake of it sometimes). Finally somebody who is on the Sunny Side!

[nbarclay]

My game is all over but the expanding (and has been for a fair while now). My period of mobilization gave me somewhere in the neighborhood of a hundred horsemen, and recently upgraded galleons shuttled a large percentage of them to Midway Island (the island northeast of Greece and west of Japan). In the meantime, I kept researching down the Industrial tech tree to Interchangeable Parts, then backed up to get Military Tradition and started my most massive upgrade program ever. (I'd skipped Industrialization since my mobilization would keep me from building factories for a while even if I wanted to.)

In 1335, nine galleons unloaded thirty-two cavalry and four infantry on the Japanese coast. The next turn, the first five of Japan's cities fell. (Keep in mind that Japan owned the entire Japan/Iroquois continent by this point.) In the meantime, my galleons went back to Midway for reinforcements. The sheer size of the Japanese continent ensured that the war would take a while, but the outcome was never in any doubt.

In the meantime, Greece had decided to finish swallowing England. I tried to put in my own bid for English territory as the war neared an end (I had a tenth galleon in my core area that had upgraded too late to participate in the Japanese invasion), but my troops only managed to land in time to watch Greece capture England's last city. Still, I had entered a technical state of war with England, so when England fell, I was able to declare victory and return my economy to a peace-time footing.

Not that that ended my designs on English territory, by any means. I had a fair number of horsemen that had had finished training too late to participate in the war with Japan, and some cavalry built even later. I had a galleon. And I had former English territory that the Greeks had not expanded their control into yet. So even though I just had one galleon, I could set the stage for an eventual war with Greece.

Japan fell, and in 1400, my eyes turned to France. (I'd been worried that my tech-for-luxuries trades with France would let them get Nationalism by the time I was ready to strike, but they didn't make it.) Southeastern Japan was so close to the french coast that my entire surviving cavalry force could land within two turns - and most of it on the turn of the landing (thanks to being able to send some of my galleons back to a nearby city for seconds). Conquest of the French mainland went quickly, but a French unit started threatening a secondary city on the Incense continent, so I decided to make peace in exchage for two of France's three surviving cities. Unfortunately, I still hadn't gotten a leader to move my palace to the Japan/France area. Since I'd planned to save my golden age to help build up a new second core, that meant still more delay in triggering it.

As the French war wound down, the final units of my planned attack on Greece arrived. (I deliberately delayed the Greek campaign until I completed the aquisition of both France's luxuries lest I upset my people.) I captured the northern part of what had once been England, all the way down to the northernmost dyes, the first turn, and kept steamrolling from there.

In the meantime, my northern force decided to keep heading east and attack Germany. Finally, around 1440, I got my first great leader in Germany. My palace moved to Rheims in 1450, and I rushed a couple Immortal units for the purpose of trying to trigger a Golden Age. In 1465, one of my Immortal units tracked down and slaughtered a group of wounded hoplites (who had been further wounded in an unfortunate encounter with an Egyptian frigate - I'd insisted on making sure Egypt was on my side in the war), and Persia's golden age began.

Germany was so technologically backward that most of its cities had nothing better than spearmen to defend them, and I actually brought in some forces from Germany to open a second front against Greece toward the end of my Greek campaign. With one heavy force attacking from the north and another coming up from the south, the western side of the Greek "U" collapsed quickly, and in 1485, only two intact nations and a remnant of a third were left. I did get a second leader in the last couple turns of the war and used him to rush Longevity (letting me switch my original capital to Universal Suffrage and claim them both). By the way, I definitely think having Longevity available so early is unbalancing.

A little later, a lone elite Egyptian sword unit left stranded on the Greek continent wandered up beside an undefended city. I used my rails to move in an infantry detachment and two bands of immortals, but the sword unit was crazy enough to attack anyhow (with predictable results - all it accomplished was to give my infantry enough experience to become elite). That attack resulted in a grand (if a bit one-sided) naval battle. Hoards of Egyptian frigates started pounding my coastline, but I quickly got the technology to start pounding the frigates with newly built and upgraded destroyers. After a few turns of that, Egypt was willing to make peace.

In the meantime, I had another fight to pick. France had earlier protected its remnant (now grown to three cities) by signing a mutual protection pact with Egypt. But when Egypt attacked, that decision (whether the pact was still in force or not) turned into a death warrant. I had six cavalry, an infantry, and an artillery unit of my own on the incense continent, and that was plenty to finish off the French.

Now, it's just Egypt and me. My golden age just ended, but with the completion of my research into Motorized Transportation, my tech lead now stands at ten. Unfortunately, my new core isn't developed enough yet to make up for my paucity of trading partners, so I can't research Flight or Radio in four turns without either running a massive deficit or switching my core to building wealth. I may back up and research Printing Press and Democracy to give my new core more time to develop and to get some extra gold for rush building (1000+ surplus per turn during Printing Press), but I'll probably see what building wealth can do for me first.

Not that I really expect the game to last much longer. The only reason I didn't win quite a few turns ago is that almost all of my rush buying has focused on trying to get outlying cities productive rather than on cultural improvements. (I'll post a minimap later; Egypt controls its home continent and a handful of islands, and the rest is pretty much all mine.)

By the way, I suspect that with courthouses, police stations and WLTED, every city on the Japanese, German, and Greek continents could have production higher than one. I've managed to succeed with most of them already with just courthouses and WLTED. But the game probably won't last enough longer for me to find out for sure before I win, and it's too much of a micromanagement nightmare for me to keep going after the official victory. Still, it's nice having all that conquered territory actually do something for me.

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

Some more events from my emperor game:

1400: Entered the Industrial age
1405: First great leader. Was shipped home
1430: Smith's built by leader
1435: Egypt destroyed China
1455: Newton's in my capitol. It already had Copernicus'
1475: Longevity built by second great leader. First time I ever build that wonder. It is great for captured cities, but has one flaw - it creates 2 pop units even if there are only food for 1.
1500 approx: Eastern peninsula of Greece is mine, including both luxuries.
1520: Japan destroyed by Iroquis. I am still the only one who knows all the world.
1595: A single Greek longbowman landed on my Incense field. I decided it was time for a golden age and sent an Immortal on him. Set Science to 0 and got 2000+ surplus for a couple of turns.
1600: ToE gave me Atomic Theory and Electronics
1610: Third Great leader. Kept him waiting on the Greek continent.
1630: I have passed the Iroquis in score and am now no 1. Researching at 4 turns/tech with 200-500 gold surplus. Regularly selling old tech to the AI which gives me all 8 lux and 400-500 gpt.
1660: Hoover in a mainland city, helped by golden age
1685: Suffrage, helped by golden age
1695: Golden Age ended. Have given me factories and hospitals in all cities on my mainland, plus marketplaces, libraries, courthouses etc in former England.
1705: The western Greek peninsula conqured. I went for Athens and razed it with Great Wall and all. I quickly resettled the razed land.
1730: The egyptians are faster than me to counquer the second last Greek city. Greece is in OCC on the southern tip of the continent. Both I and Egypt make peace on them.
1745: My capitol moves to a city 2 tiles NE of the ruins of Athens. Corruption cost goes down from 466 ot 315. Now I have 2 productive continents and even the Incense field is semi-productive with the help of courthouses.
1772: I entered the Modern age.

I have 3 transports full of tanks, infantry and artillery one turn out from landing in Germany. Plenty of more are waiting to get airlifted as soon as I have a bridgehead. The Krauts are still playing around with muskets and knights, so not even a pact would save them. Irouquis have attacked France, so they are busy fighting each other. Egypt has been gracious with me ever since we signed a MPP way back when I was in war the Greeks.

I haven't made a spaceship launch since last year. Perhaps this is the right time, when I am in tech lead and have the largest and most productive landmass.

[Chemical Ollie]

I did only had an hour of civ time last night, due to kids that never wanted to go to bed. Where do they get that energy? Can't they understand that Dad has more important things to do?


Anyway, I invaded Germany and took 3 cities on the first turn. After the 4th city, my invasion stalled due to rough terrain, lack of replacements and tough resistance from German cavallery killing my tanks in open ground. With an airport rushed in a city as soon as resistance ended, I flew in more tanks and rolled on. They are now down to 4-5 cities in the north and the only thing to slow me down is the terrain. My airforce have bombed all their resources and is sinking plenty of their wooden ships. Blublublublublub - lethal bombardment is cool!

Egypt, the vultures, singlemindedly joined on my side against Germany but has not landed anything there yet. I hope they will not get there until it's over. The Greek OCC will be invaded to landlock and culture flip an Egypt city next to my new capital. Then I expect a peaceful space race which I will easily win. I'm 3-4 techs into modern ages, and all others are still industrial. None of them are scientific civs. And if someone dares to challange me, my modern armor is only 10 turns away. This will be my second emperor win and reach my highscore list.

[nbarclay]

Believe it or not, I'm still not quite finished. (Of course the fact that I spent practically wall weekend reading David Weber's brand new Honor Harrington novel might possibly have had a tiny something to do with that. ) It's 1670 AD and I just entered the modern era after a detour becoming a democracy. If I pick the right tech, I can do four-turn research at a significant deficit, but the deficit problem should change once research labs start coming online. (I got Computers for my free tech.) Of course not all of my newer cities are far enough along in their build priorities to be ready for research labs yet.

My one possible concern is that there's an Egyptian galleon with a frigate escort off my French coast. If Egypt decides to attack, losing my sole surviving trading partner could get a bit inconvenient. On the other hand, with five tanks and a few cavalry on the land mass, and with probably over two dozen destroyers sitting off the Egyptian coast, any hostilities could get even more inconvenient for them. (That's especially true since they don't have Combustion yet.)

I've controlled most of the world for well over a century, but reaching the domination threshold is taking forever in the absence of a concerted effort to prioritize rushing libraries. I finally broke down and downloaded MapStat to get an idea how far away I was, and it currently has me 44 tiles from victory. So there probably aren't very many turns left.

One other little tidbit: I decided to build Hoover's on the formerly Japanese/Iroquois continent. For one thing, I have more cities there than on any other continent, and for another, my home continent didn't have anything a whole lot better to do than building coal plants anyhow.

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

I finally finished the game this saturday. I was attacked by Iroques in two waves with a short peace inbetween, after they captured my spy. In the first wave, I took the "midway island" and made peace when war weariness was eating me. However, my infinite MPP with Egypt forced me back in the war a few turns later. I conqured a city in their silk field and razed a few others, including their capitol. They were then willing to make peace.

Then Egypt backstabbed me and broke the MPP when I was getting to many spaceship parts. I took one city from them, sunk plenty of ships and was eventually able to get peace.

Now I had 8 spaceship parts. I built the 9th and was just one turn from researching the last tech when, surprisingly, my cultural win was triggered. Well, I guess 16 cities with BC temples and libraries can score a few cultural points, can't they?

Final score was about 4500, achieved 1950 AD. My 3-4th best score ever. And I still have had only one spaceship win ever.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Catt

I guess I don't understand this fully - particularly the "needs only one to keep him from causing riots." Does it take only one gold peice to move one citizen from unhappy to content (or content to happy and therefore off-setting an unhappy citizen?). And how do you deal with the rounding issue of the sliders. At the time I eventually made the switch to Republic, moving the slider to ebven 10% would cost approximately 70 gold per turn - and I wouldn't get a mood improvement in 70 citizens throughout the empire. In a city producing 30 total commerce, with the luxury slider set at 10%, that's 3 gold in entertainment - but I wouldn't see mood improvement in 3 citizens would I (it's never seemed that way to me before, but I haven't every watched terribly closely or studied it)?

Originally posted by nbarclay

I've only really looked closely in the early game before marketplaces, but there, it's definitely one gold for one unhappy->content or content->happy. I can't say for sure whether or not the gold gets bled off before marketplaces and banks have a chance to provide their multiplicative effect, though. I need to check when I get a chance.

I looked at this breifly in the AU 107 game -- not enough to say with certainty as it was late, I was bleary-eyed, and I did it "spur of the moment" with only a couple of cities.

But I would say that you're correct in that each citizen needs only one gold to improve his/her mood, regardless of age. The luxury slider % seems to apply only to the "base gold" -- commerce being produced by worked tiles -- not to any modifiers like marketplaces, banks, etc. which only affect tax %. So even in a size 20 city, the city's "base gold" might be about 50 (just estimating 2.5 roughly commerce per tile times 21 tiles) and so a 10% luxury slider will devote 5 gold to city-specific happiness - moving 5 citizens in the right direction!

What I didn't check was corruption -- I assume that the same city, if totally corrupt, would potentially produce only 1 "luxury" gold and one happy citizen since corruption eats away gold before the effects of the science and "tax" sliders are used ("tax" being whatever is not devoted to science and luxury).

I never did (and probably never will) go back and reply it as a republic to compare my game, but I still learned something valuable about the luxury slider and how it works!

Catt

[Chemical Ollie]

Well, actually the score appeared at 5116 in the highscore list.

Here's the culture that triggered my win.

[Theseus]

DAMN!! That's some culture, baby!! I've never scored that high.

First, helluva a win. Second, the Iroquois were toast in my game.

Can't tell... is that Alex' OCC south of the big continent? That's what I left the bastard.

[nbarclay]

Victory! In 1700 AD, Egypt finally conceded that Persia had grown so large and powerful that contesting its dominance was futile. I'm still not on a long-term sustainable four-turn modern research pace, but I'm not at my limits on enhancing my wealth and research capacity either. It would be a tight race to see whether I can get my research rate high enough before my gold reserves run out. (Not that I have any intention of playing it out farther.) My final score was 5460, my fourth highest score to date (although I also have a couple unfinished games that would be higher if I bothered to finish them).

By the way, when I watched the replay, I saw that Egypt had finished off China in something like 90 BC. The world ended up rather interesting: the only land masses Egypt controlled were the ones that would have been useless to me anyhow (aside from Egypt's posession of a single luxury). Anyone think there's a snowball's chance in the Sahara that that was a coincidence?

Nathan

[Chemical Ollie]

Originally posted by Theseus
DAMN!! That's some culture, baby!! I've never scored that high.

First, helluva a win. Second, the Iroquois were toast in my game.

Can't tell... is that Alex' OCC south of the big continent? That's what I left the bastard.

Yeah, those BC temples and libraries did a great job after sitting there for a while. All 16 mainland cities each had 5000 culture and higher. I just realised that not a single city culture flipped from me during the whole game, not even newly captured size 12 cities. Perhaps this was why?

I've never had higher culture either but both my wins on emperor (ever) were triggered this way. Early conquering giving me a leading position, to take the tech lead and then surprisingly win by culture.

Now, this was a replay, so it's perhaps a little "cheaty" to count this win, but the first game on this map was as Romans on monarch level, which I lost in misery, so it's still a different game.

The Iroquois smashed Japan in both my games. I could had overrun The Iroquis in the late game, as I had a strong foothold on their continent and had already razed their capitol, but decided against it to get rid of war disorder and focus on the space race.

I also left Alex in OCC on the southern tip for a while but eventually decided to get rid of him, as he was too close to my new capitol. The foreign town you see on the minimap belongs to Egypt and is located on the tiny island SW of former Greece.