Pointless things I do

[Golden Bear]

I have this habit of telling myself the story of my civilization as I play (I am usually the good guy but some days I have a bad day at work and then I start a game as the Chinese and just play to get in to fights - but that is another story).

Anyway, I frequently get myself in to wars for completely stupid things - and I do it willingly. An example: current game, Monarch, dry old terrain - not many really productive areas... I control half a continent, Romans have the other, I am one tech from Modern and just kind of rolling along, cleaning up terrain and pollution, waiting for the win. (BTW, I also am building tanks and destroyers like crazy just to keep the Romans calm). The English, who I dislike, have their civ on the other continent and one city on my own. I don't mind their one pitiful city - it's kind of cute and provides a place for my citizens to go buy cheap trade goods and pick up hookers - I even built a RR to their city to help them develop (remember this post is about pointless things!)

So the crappy Babylonians attack the English. It is Babs 20 cities to English 6 cities. The Aztecs and and the Greeks pile on when the English are down to two cities. This Ps me off and I decide to protect the English. I don't want to MPP with them, but I surround their pitiful little city with workers and tanks so they cannot be attacked. Well, the crappy Babs drop a pile of 8 inf and cav about 5 squares up the coast from the city (past the end of my line of tanks and in MY territory. "Hey, crappy Babs, leave my territory! You tried this before and got sent home crying. Don't piss me off or I will be at your door in about three years - have you forgotten what happened to the Persians already?"

Reply from Babs, "Uh, duh, we declare war." (to the accompaniment of drooling and knuckle dragging). OK, I cash in a stacked leader to make an army (I want heroic epic), and get my army victory. Then, I bring out all my stockpiled elite cav and attack until I get another GL to stash for Man Proj/UN/SETI or something. Mop up their troops. Build a couple more transports...

Then the wife comes home and I have to wait how the story turns out...

OK, so why did I "adopt" the English? I usually eradicate them if given a chance. I just hate AI "piling on." So weak. The result is that I got myself into a stupid overseas war that will take me about 10-12 turns to resolve.

Just to show how silly I can be, I am playing my all time fav civ - the French. Yes, the whole world will be speaking FRENCH! The first space ship will be FRENCH! The UN will be FRENCH! FRENCH, FRENCH, FRENCH!

OK, I will save my other silly stuff for later since this post is a little long.

Carlos

[alva]

and then they say the AI makes stupid random decissions

Nice story

I often 'protect' very weak civs too,

[Theseus]

L'enfer, c'est les autres Civs.

[Catt]

I have the most fun when I have a challenging game and when I weave an entertaining story of my civ in my own mind.

Protect the pitiful English - Elizabeth is know the world over as a grateful and trustwrothy ally .

Catt

[vmxa1]

Golden Bear, if I could come with those stories, I would be having more fun. Anyway, it seems like it will reduce the bordom of just waiting around.

[Qilue]

A point about the AI "piling on". In my last game, the AI piled on me. They also piled on everyone else too.

(I've modded my game so arty, radar arty, bombers, stealth bombers, battleships and aegis cruisers have lethal sea bombardment and cruise missles have a range of 4.)

At the time my defences were near impregnible and I had no interest in 'their' cities, so I parked the modern armour in a back area and ramped up production of cruise missles. Very few ships actually reached my coast, even fewer landed any troops and none left it.

A little later, germany and babylon were at war with each other and with me and there was this city close enough to my border that I could see the defending unit. So each turn, I'd use cruise missles to wipe out the defenders (didn't matter who's ) so the other side would capture it. This city started at size 14 until the germans decided to ruin my fun by razing it. (I then cruise missled those responsible)

Also -
If you listen carefully, you can hear the passengers screaming when you sink a transport.

When a swordsman dies, he 'overacts' the death. If you look carefully, they seem to do a little jump and then falling over dead.

[Golden Bear]

OK, I will jump into the thread that I started... but a quick silliness.

Qilue started to remind me...

two other civs are sharing a continent... I had a war with one and own a toehold city. But I really do not need any more land. Well, the two civs (Persia and Rome) are going at it hammer and tongs with tanks and MI and bombers and, well all kinds of bad stuff. The Persians are winning.

So.... I airlifted a bunch of units in, got ROPs with both sides and created a zig-zag barrier across the continent. Every turn I would step it forward or back one or two cities and watch the fortunate civ demolish the isolated forces of the other. I did this for a looong time. They finally declared peace (boo!).

Oops, staff meeting coming up. "Yes, yes, be right there, just updating my technical prospectus (or something)..."

Carlos

[Prince]

LOL good story. I do my fair share of useless stuff as well.

Last game, the Japanese got beaten really bad by the Romans, and at one point, I noticed they had no cities left. I wondered how that was possible, untill I saw a little red dot in the great ocean between the 2 other continents. A little island, consisting of a forest and a mountain, now provided the Japs with a home. It was really depressing to see Togakuwa like that, all alone on his mountain, so I built some cities in a far off corner of my empire (I did give them silly names, of course ) and 'donated' them to the Japanese, sent some workers to 'work for them' and patrolled his borders with Cavalry 'to protect them'.

But then the Romans found out. By this time I got to look at the Japanese as my 'bonzai-civ', so the Romans were gonna get it! I was really putting the smack down on 'em, and then suddenly, my red pet-cities turned blue. Stinky Romans launched a surpise attack, and took the Japs out in no time!

Of course they paid, but it was a shame to see my little project get blown to smithereens by some stupid Roman conqueror. Togakuwa wasn't doing anything wrong in my backyard

[Golden Bear]

Prince - nice touch! I'm going to steal your idea and make a gift of some cities to the English. Of course they might be Bab cities.

I gave the English Nationalism and 500gp in hopes that they would build some riflemen and defend themselves, but they seem sort of limp and lifeless.

Poor little Lizzie, all alone like that. Joan has hair but shaves her head and Liz is bald underneath all that. No wonder she is so mean all the time!

Carlos

"Banzai civ" is a classic!!

[Tuberski]

Should be "bonsai-civ" not banzai.

[Zero]

I love playing a 16 player civ game in prince or warlord mode (my skill level is around at monarch and I find emperor challenging in 16 player situation) and establish quick dominance by the time I enter industrial era by declaring war and chewing them one civ at a time. When I have the selected cities that I want as my empire, I simply give away the others to the weakest. The goal of this weirdie game is to keep all 16 player alive. usually some do fall in the beginning though. If game slows down too much, then I start relocating empire based on what I feel they should be. Then I create super empire by giving cities mostly to one civ when it gets even more boring. That way i can topple down another challenging civ again.

[Random Passerby]

I like to avoid letting any AI civs get wiped out too, unless I'm trying to let another civ grow into a worthy superpower rival. I also deliberately set up long-standing alliances, even though they're not particularly favorable, and after Nationalism I set up MPPs with closest allies and honor them wholeheartedly (rather than declaring war and then just staying at home).

Also, whenever I'm fighting a war alongside my allies, I try to keep firm control of as much territory as possible, but when the fighting dies down I hold imaginary negotiations and divvy up conquered territory as I see appropriate, largely based on geographic positioning (giving conquered cities to whatever allied power is closest) but with other (generally equally imaginary) considerations as well.

Oh, and very ocassionally, when another (non-hated-enemy) civ is about to be wiped out and I'm not in a position to do anything about it, I'll offer them asylum and give them a small city for a government in exile.

[Prince]

Originally posted by Tuberski
Should be "bonsai-civ" not banzai.

Nevertheless, what I wrote was 'bonzai', and that's wrong Sorry.

Good luck Golden Bear, and keep us updated on Lizzy. I'd be surprised if she actually starts being nice for a change, I've never seen her nice

[Golden Bear]

Of course it is "bonsai," not "banzai." I was (ahem) at work taking a short break and obviously got two thoughts running in my head at the same time!

I have only the tiniest update since it was Friday night and my wife expected to actually spend time with me!!

However, since there was a war, I decided to make it a good one. First, the Aztecs (neighbors to the Greeks on the other continentz) declare war on me. This is what might be called a "premature" piling on since the other civs are tankless and yours truly has no such problem.

The Greeks are in between the Aztecs and Babs (on their continent the civ order from N to S is this... Babs [captured England]/Aztecs/Greeks/Babylonians. The obvious ploy was to get the Greeks involved in the war - I could have done this first and probably gotten a peace proposal from Babylon, but hey, it's my game! sometimes a short war livens things up!

BTW, I am in Republic and have lots of cash, so I can hang in a war for a while - I missed Sistine by a turn early on because I could not get a GL at the correct time. The Babylonians have it, and will soon give it up, I think.

The next thing I do is to get Rome on my side just so that they do not think too hard about the big back-stab while I am sending troops overseas. However, once again, they are marching legions around in front of my tanks. Maybe they are ceremonial honor guards or something. Now the entire world is at war with somebody. My big concern is how it will end - I do not want Rome to be too powerful. I am pretty certain that Rome will want to test me sometime, although they pretty much like me.

On the English front, since Aztecs, etc. managed to get troops next to Leicester (the outpost English capital at the far dirt road extremity of my, err, Republic), I gave them a nice size 9 city at the end of a peninsula. I can block the peninsula with one infantry and the city itself was one of the ones that only produces a single shield. Besides that, it smells like fish. A suitable place for Liz to be holed up. The interesting thing to me is that my new minion Elizabeth is actually Polite! I have never seen her polite to me before! Of course I usually just start attacking the English when I see them, but still...

Last tiny detail... I sent a single transport over to the Backwards continent and dropped off 7 tanks and an infantry at the margin between the Aztecs and the former English country. The tanks rolled off into a countryside of mud and dirt roads lined by the usual miserable dirt huts that I expect from the Aztecs. The Aztecs ran up a couple of local defence troops - Knights and watched as I took down a size 5 town. I razed the town since it sat on one of the two roads into the north and I do not want a stronghold at my back and do not want to have to defend it - think of Sherman's march. The next turn I started taking back the English towns.

I have more transports marshalling and they will probably go south to the main Babylonian holdings.

I'll try to post my most recent save, although I am not confident that it will work. Keen observers will note that my navy is currently undersized and only consists in destroyers. I usually only build destroyers and Aegis cruisers because I think the cost for benefit is much better than for battleships.

More to come if people remain interested.

Carlos

hmm, now the Babs want peace. Nope, they are not crying loud enough yet! no dice!

[Prince]

You got a nice game going there! I took a look at your save, and here's a few things I'd be doing in the next turns:

1) Take the 3 northmost Bab cities and give them back to the English, so they can help you later on against the southern Babs and maybe even the Aztecs, although they might be already be dead before they produce their first unit.

2) Have no mercy on the Aztecs and exterminate every last one of them on the east continent. You could either raze their cities/donate them to the english, or rush build temples and keep them. I recommend the latter if you're going for domination (which is very possible in this game).

3) Go through Greece (not sure if you have a ROP yet) and treat the Babs to some extermination style Joanne! This will be a little tougher than the Aztecs, but they'll suffer more than you do, especially if you've established a good base or 2 north of the Greeks. If you conquer all or most of the Bab cities and develop them, you should have a domination victory really close.

4) Thank the Greeks and possibly the English (depending on how much they helped you ) by chasing them off the east continent. You want that pretty land for yourself, and domination will rest assured.

5) Build that Military Acedemy, even if it's just for style bonus

6) Warfare with the Romans is going to be tricky unless you build up plenty of defense (something you don't have that much of on your home continent) soon, so you might want to keep them around, certainly when they're helping you with obliterating the Babs.

7) Space Race should be easy with all those big shield cities you got from India, and your own near paris of course. Besides, you already have the tech lead. Spacing is the easy way out for this game, though If you really want to end things with a bang, go for conquest. The Romans are to be feared most, I guess, if you give them a little time to develop

I attached a little screenshot, as I thought this an extremely funny picture. A good little Gardener working your Palace's backyard, I can almost hear the wife calling from Pergamon, 'time for dinner, Alex!'

[vmxa1]

First thing I would say is to make a trade to get Spies. I would want to know what Rome has in the way of troops. I would swap some tech for all that the civs that are at the bottom have that I do not. Especially England as they are going away very soon.
I would have taken the peace with Babs and gone to war with Rome as I dislike a big civ on my land mass. They should be easy as they do not have RR and will be hard pressed to bring all they have to bear and you can. You will soon have a bunch of new cities and lots of land for those workers to work on. It is fine to go the other way as you are, but I really do not like to share my land late in the game. Once I have all the contient RR no one can ever land and take a piece. As it is Babs could make MPP/ROP and come in via Rome and make things rough.
I see lots of unhappiness, so that can jump up. Why not give some luxs on the slider, you can spare it. Going with the current war, I would like to see a rush of the airport in Hastings to allow air drops. I would have 4 or more airports so I can slam tanks and MI to the front and bombers. I would not have done fisson first, the UN and Man can wait a bit. I would prefer Computers to get labs and MI. Depending on what was going on I could hold off on Fission for a long time. I want to get Eco and Fibers next if I can get away with it. I see a transport unescorted, that can work if you know no danger exist. Anyway you are in great shape and can do as you wish.
One other thing, some cities are on wealth and have many unhappy people, I would build Police Stations and if not building units, then set a few people to entertainers, you could do that and not use the slider. No need to risk disorder as war is going to last a while.

[Golden Bear]

Thanks for the comments, folks!

So many things... remember that the save I put up was immediately after the war started. Of course I converted all the "wealth" builds to other things - mostly Police Stations at first.

I sent troops in unescorted transports because I had bombarded all the Babylonian ironclads and they were off the seas - plus, I was taking a chance. As it turned out, submarines sank one transport later, but none of the others.

I took over the Bab possessions in the north first and paid for airports in the first two cities. At the same time I got a ROP with Greece and started building up for an attack on mainland Babylon. After cleaning up the old English possessions, I turned around and wiped out the mainland Aztec cities and made them all my own... the Greeks took one town.

The attack on Babylon was messy at first because the Babs kept throwing out waves of marines and infantry - no armor, no cav. But lots of foot soldiers. However, rather conveniently, the Greeks would polish off these guys before my turn would come and I could concentrate on taking cities. BTW, from the Golden Bear recipe book - uses for obsolete cavalry: don't throw them away against infantry, save them and use them as pacification troops. A pile of 8 cav in a city does a nice job and frees up your armor for real work! Plus with 3 movement they can get up to newly taken cities at the front despite broken road systems.

The Romans are worthless as allies and have contributed nothing except a couple of ships that are getting in the way. I could have a war with them, but I want to see if they have the guts to start it. I have a few reserve troops on the main continent, but my production capacity is large enough now that I am certain that I can produce modern armor fast enough to stop any Roman attack. I have peace with the Aztecs now, but they just declared war on the English again and I may have to clean out their last two rats holes on islands - I will move transports that direction just in case.

I have stopped military production in favor of Mass Transit and Research Facilities. Another 8 cities and the Babylonians will have become "good" neighbors.

Thanks for letting me share the game with you.

Carlos

[vmxa1]

It is funny how you can go in so many different ways. I finished he Fisison and made the UN with the leader you had and then researched Compputers, Eco,Fibers,Rocket/Recyle/Mini/. Put up labs and mass trans and then recycle to reduce all the pollution and how much time the workers had to spend on clean up. The first turn signed peace with Babs they gave 100/ greece/ trade radio for Esp/AW/thier map/ 150 /urn. Trade it to someone else for something. Reset a few citizens to get more shields and later gave 10% lux. By 1752 all upgrade to MI done. Spies on all by 1762. Made a few fighter/bombers and 1790 went after rome.

[vmxa1]

It went swell, got 5 leaders in 4-5 turns, made peace after cutting them down about 10 cities, they had no planes left, no MA except ones they make on a given turn. Eliminated england to insure all land was contiguous. This means no landings without a war, no sneaking in settlers for any open spaces. 1806ad. WW is the reason for the peace. Thanks for the fun.

[Bambul]

I love playing a 16 player civ game in prince or warlord mode (my skill level is around at monarch and I find emperor challenging in 16 player situation) and establish quick dominance by the time I enter industrial era by declaring war and chewing them one civ at a time. When I have the selected cities that I want as my empire, I simply give away the others to the weakest. The goal of this weirdie game is to keep all 16 player alive. usually some do fall in the beginning though. If game slows down too much, then I start relocating empire based on what I feel they should be. Then I create super empire by giving cities mostly to one civ when it gets even more boring. That way i can topple down another challenging civ again.

I just can't resist posting my rather lengthy anacdote. My current game is emperor with 16 Civs on a small map. There are only 3 of us left, myself (Americans), the Aztecs and the Germans (with 2 cities on an island).

I was halfway through the industrial age with 4 cities (having played a peacelovers role, going to war with the Russians twice when they declared war on me, the later went on to be my closest allies - a USA/Britain during WW2 type of relation - only to be conquered by the Aztec later when I made peace with them) when I realised that the Aztecs were really dominating the map. They were allied to China (#2) and systematically conquering all other nations, England, India, France, Rome, and so on.

There were 7 Civs left, with everyone but me at war with the Germans. I put together my master plan. I built a Settler and sent him sailing to the other side of the continent next to the Aztecs, founded a city and named it The Alamo. I then got a MPP with every Civ except for Germany (because I wanted everyone against Aztec, not me) and China (who refused).

My lucky break came 2 turns later when I got a message from the Aztecs: "We want your map and 40gp". I said no and the war started. By the next turn Aztec and China were at war with America, Greece, Russia, Persia and Germany. None of my allies had more than 3 cities (plus my 4th had just been taken, which was on a 3 tile island, but had my only source of iron), and I needed to take the Chinese city of Niagara Falls to get rubber to build infantry.

I was on an upside L shaped corner of my continent, with the Greeks to my West, Chinese to my North and Russians to my East. The Chinese were also to the East of Russia. The rest of the continent was a big blob to the south of that, mostly under Aztec control (but the South-West was held by the Persians and Germans).

I got a few turns facing just the Chinese while the Aztecs took on their close neighbours, which gave me the time I needed to prepare myself for an offensive on Niagara Falls. I had few riflemen or cavalry (about 10 of each) but closer to 20 artillery, plus Russian ground troops. I didn't have espionage, but I estimate that the Chinese had 20 Calalry and 20-30 offensive riflemen/infantry. Artillery did its job of softening them up as they moved onto my territory, Cavalry finished them off, then I would do what I could on Russian soil (unfortunately there didn't appear to be too many Cossacks).

Forts also did a good job of softening up their cavalry. One time I had 2 forts on mountains between hills. The Chinese sent a Cavalry, it got hit by both forts, attacked New York, losing 1 HP to my artillery, then lost its last HP to my Infantry.

I finally made peace 3 times (twice with the Aztecs because they wouldn't get off my territory), getting quite a few advances in the peace treaties. I had also increased my size from 4 cities to 16. But with myself out of the war, the Aztecs had no limits on them anymore, so they took Russia and Greece, then declared war on China. Since I had signed a MPP with Aztecs (as insurance to keep me out of a war with them again for 20 turns) I was also in. I took as many cities as I could so that the Aztecs wouldn't plus I stole some 4 advances with the 6,000gp that I got with my previous peace treaty with China, then signed another peace treaty. A few turns later the Aztecs took that last city.

But China also took an alliance with Germany against Aztec, so now the third last Civ is at war with the two remaining superpowers and unlikely to remain for long.

Once Germany is gone, the MPP disappears and my insurance is gone. And the Aztecs have tanks (only 4 right now though). And with only 2 Civs, the UN is useless!

And I was looking forward to a UN vote with 16 Civs!

[Theseus]

Originally posted by Bambul
And I was looking forward to a UN vote with 16 Civs!

Good story, Bambul, but I gotta ask... has anyone taken a chance on a 16 civ UN vote?

Not me.

I'm starting to follow Catt's philosophy... I'll pull every trick out of my big bag of strats, but I make myself stay within the diplo / relation rules. I guess that's what I'm shooting for... play as good a game as I can, including all of the strats I employ, and yet still be able to pull off a 16 civ UN vote.

I've always thought of Aeson's SVC as the premier performance to date... I would consider this kind of diplo performance right up there too.

[vmxa1]

Golden Bear, I forgot to mention, I went lazy and shot the space launch at 1882. I did not know it was in the game as I never use it until I saw Xerxes building, it and forced my hand. Score 5483.

[Meshelic]

I often times enjoy picking a weaker civilization who is about to be crushed and then I ride in heroicly and save their day, even though it pits me against the rest of the world. And sometimes that 'satellite' state you choose to protect joins with them and attacks you as well, but it makes little difference as they just end up killing themselves as well.

It's happened to me a couple times, but most civs end up hating me anyways for some dumb reason.

[jubilation]

As for pointless...

1. Create a huge fleet of privateers (Arr!) (This isn't the pointless part yet; privateers are romantic)

2. *After* clearing out the enemy's navy, send your caravel transports escorted by a ring of frigates. (This is the pointless part; the enemy is floating supine upon the waters. Avast!)

3. Maintain this discipline throughout the whole arduous process of ferrying your army over to the enemy's continent. It's What Good Britons Do!

4. Pray for the occasional barbship to liven up the frigates' day.

[Meshelic]

Never quite had the patience to make it to a UN vote with 16 civs. Most die before that can happen, or I get relatively bored with my situation. Either way, I'm still looking forward to something like that.