AU207: Big Planet - Strategy, Spoilers and Comments

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by vulture
Revenge of the cheese eating surrender monkeys

vulture, excellent AAR

I don't know how intimate your relation with Joan is, but I would definitely NOT let her know that you call her people 'cheese eaters'

[vulture]

MS: The 'cheese-easting surrender monkeys' line is from "The Simpsons" IIRC, courtesy of Homer Simpson. It was just such an outrageous line that I found it incredibly funny.

[Arrian]

I managed to play a few more turns last night. I got Education from the GL, and then started work on Music Theory (Bachs, then a beeline for Cav... that's the plan).

The Zulu broke their alliance with me and made peace with Japan, and had the insufferable GALL to be "annoyed" at ME afterward! I paid them off (free luxury for 20 turns - the same luxury I had been paying them to fight the Japanese) to be "polite" until I get around to greasing them. That allowed me to make peace with Japan too (for which I got paid). America allied with the Mongols against Japan shortly thereafter. So right now, I'm fighting the Mongols, who are fighting the Japanese, with the help of America. Got it?

Three Mongol cities have fallen, and a fourth will fall shortly. Casualties have been moderate. I did lose my northern expeditionary force (several med inf, a pikeman, 2 knights, 3 catapults), though. I marched through America to take a shot at the Mongol iron city, and lost to a horde of Keshiks. I took a couple with me, but my 3 defense units (pikeman, knights) got slaughtered despite being up on hills & having bombard support. Just a bad run of luck to make up for that lucky 2nd leader, I guess.

A very odd thing happened in 900 AD, though

I finally said "screw it" and built the FP just south of Thebes so I could rush the Palace in Berlin. On the 900 AD turn I switched the city in question over to the FP (at a 73 shield loss from the palace - I was saving shields for Bachs) and also switched Berlin to the palace & used my leader to rush it. The next turn, the turn counter on Berlin read "99 Turns" for the palace!

There is only one thing I can think of right now: during the 900AD turn, I captured a Mongol city. I know that the cost of the palace varies based on # of cities you have. Could it be that that # is only calculated at the beginning of each turn, and that the city I captured boosted my palace from 800 shields to 900?

Anyway, I consider that a bug, and will be going back to the 900AD turn. I'll just wait one more turn to rush the palace. I figure that should work.

-Arrian

p.s. PTW 1.14, btw.

[Catt]

Keep the updates coming, all! I am really enjoying the AARs for AU 207.

Originally posted by Catt
Additional game notes and thoughts later.

Sorry. I've been really swamped in real life, and haven't had any time to coordinate my impressions of the huge map experience, and barely any time to even keep up with the threads.

Catt

[Dominae]

Originally posted by Catt
Sorry. I've been really swamped in real life, and haven't had any time to coordinate my impressions of the huge map experience, and barely any time to even keep up with the threads.

No worries, I still have a NIC follow-up to write (I'll do one, I swear)!


Dominae

[Arrian]

Well, I reloaded back 2 turns and managed to fix the palace rush thing. So as of 900AD, Berlin is my capitol. I played up to 1020AD.

The Great Mongolian War continues. Casualties are mounting. I've sustained ~25% losses to my Knight force (down to 40 from 53), though the completion of my universities in the south means I will start getting reinforcements again. I have cut the Mongol horse supply, too, which ought to help. The battle for Karakorum was bloody, but now I have the Pyramids. I also sent a second strike force through America at Mongolia's iron city (though I then noticed it is only 1 of their 2 irons) and this time took it (and got my catapults back). The Mongols and I now have gunpowder, but luckily they do not have saltpeter (well, they did, unconnected, but I own that city now ). The Americans have one unconnected saltpeter, and thanks to my RoP (renewed), they will not connect it anytime soon. I have a med inf. standing on it.

Leader #3 became insta-Bachs. I made the switch to Monarchy, and am still managing reasonable research. Currently researching Chemistry, due in a few turns. I may detour briefly for Astronomy and then go back to my Cavalry beeline... or not. We'll see.

I'm a little frustrated that the war is taking so long. I think that's a function of the map size. I looked at my 50 knights and thought I could take the Mongols & Americans down with relative ease and speed, only to discover that on a Huge map, 50 knights aren't nearly as impressive as they would be on a standard.

Current plan: mop up the Mongols while working on getting Cavalry (easier said than done). Hit America with Cavalry. Then, depending on what I've got left, hit either Zululand or Japan. Meanwhile, build up former Germany as best I can (courthouses being built everywhere even though I don't need them now b/c of current palace placement. When I move the palace north into America, though, those ch's will come in handy).

-Arrian

[Jawa Jocky]

Originally posted by Arrian
Well, I reloaded back 2 turns and managed to fix the palace rush thing. So as of 900AD, Berlin is my capitol. I played up to 1020AD.

-Arrian

Maybe I haven't read enough AARs, but this is the first time I've seen a restart that was legitimate, IMO.

I've enjoyed the AAR for 207. There seems to have been more variety in the methods used in this course.

Unfortunately I've been working 70 hour weeks which doesn't leave a family man much CivTime. I'll be voting for OCC for 208 since I might actually be able to complete one of those courses.

[Arrian]

Speaking of the reload... do you guys think I encountered a bug worth of report?

-Arrian

[badams52]

Originally posted by Arrian
Speaking of the reload... do you guys think I encountered a bug worth of report?

-Arrian

Definately. It's certainly not the way a leader is supposed to work. You rush a building, then you find out you can't build it for another 99 turns! That's just wrong.

[vulture]

Speaking of the reload... do you guys think I encountered a bug worth of report?

I don't know if it is what they intended or not, but I'm not sure I'd call it a bug. Other people have used it to get around the bad effects of a wonder cascade without keeping a leader hanging around, stopping you gettnig any more.

Imagine: you are building the Sistine (the only wonder available) and shortly before you finish it (and a few turns before you finish researching Music Theory for Bach's) some utter swine builds it first. If you keep the leader hanging around waiting for music theory you may waste the chance for more leaders (since you are at war). The alternative is to change the Sistine to the palace, rush it with the leader, capture a town or two and let the prebuild continue until you can switch to Bach's (which will probably be completed instantly at the loss of many sheilds, compared to the cost of the palace). I've known people deliberately use this 'feature' for this purpose.

Individual preference though. Some people like this option. Others won't want to be forced into the position of not conquering any cities on the turn they rush the palace somewhere.

Actually, now I think about it, the latter is going to crop up in more games than the former (which is not realistic), so maybe it is something that should be fixed.

[Catt]

Originally posted by Arrian
Speaking of the reload... do you guys think I encountered a bug worth of report?

I think Firaxis is probably aware of it -- it has been around for some time (as vulture points out). It is pretty surprising the first time it happens until you figure out that the palace cost depends on the number of cities, the leader just fills the current shield box, and the shield box can grow if you subsequently capture or found more cities.

Think of it as a consistent principle: rush-buying, whether by leader, pop, or cash, fills the current shield box. You can see the principle operate as well in "short-rushing" situations -- i.e., you really need a harbor immediately and are prepared to rush it, but you have no shields in the box and no units available for disband -- rush a worker at 80 gold (the 2x penalty for no shields), then switch the production to harbor and rush the remaining 70 shields for 280 -- the short-rush saves 280 shields over a straight rush. I consider the short-rush a personal exploit (I don't do it) but many others think its perfectly appropriate.

The leader - palace - "more turns needed" situation is just plain annoying, and unless playing in some sort of competition where the rules bar it, I wouldn't complain about someone reloading in that situation.

Catt

[Jawa Jocky]

Has anyone ever lost a city with x-turns left on a Palace or FP and had it finish on that turn? In a war it could even see it being beneficial to disband a city just to build quickier.

I don't see the point in reporting to Firaxis (if they are still patching). Let's just make a mental note and move on.

[Yahweh Sabaoth]

Catt, is there a thread you know of off-hand that explains rushing principles better?

I knew how to "work it" in Civ2, but I sort of forgot, and never have done much thinking about it in Civ3.

[Mountain Sage]

Originally posted by Arrian
Nor Me,

Things have been far too peaceful. Sssssoooon, my ppppreciousssssss. Soon we shall have 75 Knights. And then they will pay. Nasty, tricksey, false AI!

-Arrian the mad

Three civs for Emperor Aeson to win
Seven for King Dominae for his hall of fame
Nine for Warlord Theseus for him to spin
One for the dark Lord in his current game
In the land of Firaxis where mad Arrian lies
One civ to play them all, one civ to war them,
One civ to master them and in conquest slay them
in the land of Firaxis where mad Arrian lies.

"The war for AU207 has ended. The war for Civ 3 has just begun." MS

[badams52]

Originally posted by Catt
I think Firaxis is probably aware of it -- it has been around for some time (as vulture points out). It is pretty surprising the first time it happens until you figure out that the palace cost depends on the number of cities, the leader just fills the current shield box, and the shield box can grow if you subsequently capture or found more cities.

If I'm reading Arrian correctly, the annoying part about this is when you've finished you turn, capturing all the cities you're going to capture, then say to yourself, let's now rush my capital. So using your last movement of this turn (900 AD) you use your leader to rush the capitol, only to find out next turn that it cost more than you thought. That's what I think is just wrong.

If this isn't what happened to Arrian, then disregard my post. If instead he captured cities after rushing the capitol, then that's just how the game is supposed to work in regards to rushing.

[badams52]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth
Catt, is there a thread you know of off-hand that explains rushing principles better?

I knew how to "work it" in Civ2, but I sort of forgot, and never have done much thinking about it in Civ3.

Yahweh,

Don't know of a thread for working it, but the basic principals are easy.

I believe Catt gave you the best example for a pure rush when buying without using units. Same as civ 2. With no shields, the buyout is at it's highest. A worker has the least shields to buy thus only 80 gold. After that, all othet improvements price drops around 50% (so a factory starting at 1800 would drop to ~900 after rushing a worker first).

I don't know if a cascading rush is cheaper, i.e. rush worker, switch to settler, rush settler, switch to harbor, rush harbor, etc. But that would be easy for you to test out.

In civ (the original) I remember that military units cost more to rush than an equivalent shield costing city improvement. So if you wanted a tank, you'd rush a city improvement with equal value than switch to tank (which is why the 1/2 shield reduction for switching in civ 2 happened). Don't know if they changed this in civ 3 or not.

As you may recall from our earlier discussion, it's always cheaper to disband units if you have them.

Another favorite of mine is to disband one unit, then rush. The disbanded unit takes the edge off the full shield buy and leaves a cheaper cost for the rush.

Maybe others can fill in the other exploits/cheaper ways to rush.

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by badams52
If this isn't what happened to Arrian, then disregard my post. If instead he captured cities after rushing the capitol, then that's just how the game is supposed to work in regards to rushing.

If that's how it's supposed to work, it's a case of poor design. Standard operating procedure, especially in the age of railroads, is to use a leader practically the moment he appears if you have a good use for him so you can get another leader later the same turn. With the current design, you have to choose from (1) delay using the leader, probably sacrificing some chance to get another one, (2) take a chance of essentially wasting the leader if he ends up not finishing the palace after all, or (3) go through a lot of pain counting cities and finding about the (undocumented) palace cost structure in order to find out whether you can rush the palace in mid-turn safely given your conquest plans for later in the turn. None of those options is particularly attractive.

Basically, the current cost structure offers a clear benefit only to extreme micromanagers (and then only in rare cases) while placing the vast majority of more casual players very much at risk.

[nbarclay]

The gold per shield is constant with the exception that if no shields are already in place when you start a rush, the cost is double. So setting to build a worker or warrior, rushing, and then switching and rushing the rest would be profitable, but a multi-layer variant of that trick would not produce any additional advantage.

Of course if you aren't in a huge hurry, the cheapest thing is to rush every other turn, thereby letting cities contribute at least one shield on their own. That way you don't have to worry about either disbanding units or wasting even the 40 gold that rushing a 10-shield unit before switching to something else at normal price costs.

Nathan

[badams52]

Originally posted by nbarclay
If that's how it's supposed to work, it's a case of poor design. Standard operating procedure, especially in the age of railroads, is to use a leader practically the moment he appears if you have a good use for him so you can get another leader later the same turn. With the current design, you have to choose from (1) delay using the leader, probably sacrificing some chance to get another one, (2) take a chance of essentially wasting the leader if he ends up not finishing the palace after all *snip*.

Good point, hadn't thought of that aspect of it. But usually when I have a leader in waiting to build something (such as a wonder that I don't have the tech for yet, or the leader is in transit), then I change my warfare style. The elite* and veterans attack while the elites just rest and wait. And maybe I'll net some more eiltes in the process. So while (1) is a vaild complaint, I don't think the delay of warring for 1 turn produces much of a problem.

[DeepO]

Originally posted by badams52
I don't know if a cascading rush is cheaper, i.e. rush worker, switch to settler, rush settler, switch to harbor, rush harbor, etc. But that would be easy for you to test out.

I'm not sure anymore if it was Civ 2 or SMAC (I think Civ2) but there it matter, in Civ3 it doesn't. In Civ2, the cost was doubled if you didn't had half of the shields yet, so if you need a large rush, you could rush several buildings which all had more then half of the shields present, and get from a worker to a factory at slightly over half the cost.

In Civ3, cost depends on having shields in the box or not, meaning that a cascaded rush is not needed for a "short rush": you just rush a worker first, and get to a factory immediately after that if you want to.

Further comments on rushing in Civ3: whatever shields you would gain in the turn you complete the building are lost. You also don't receive any excess gold. So, the most efficient use of cash is if you rush a slightly less expensive building a few turns before the target would complete, and get the last part the normal way by collecting shields.

This also works best to offset small differences in cost: if you have 12 shields left on a horseman you're producing, in a city which generates 5 shields, you can rush a spear for 8 gold (2 shields), and finish the horse in 2 turns, instead of 3. Doing so, you use a bit of cash to gain 3 shields that would otherwise be lost, so those 8 gold are in reality worth 5 shields instead of the 2 you pay for. A lot of micromanaging, but worth it.

DeepO

[Arrian]

I managed to play some more yesterday.

I'm now up to 1310AD. The Mongols have 2 island cities left, and I've started in on the Americans. I have ~65 Cavalry.

The problem now is that Japan finally started to beat the Americans. They've taken some cities, razed others, and I've seen THREE seperate 3xSamurai armies. And they have musketmen. Fighting them is going to be nasty. I expect heavy casualties. However, once I'm done with them, I won't need much of an army. Just enough to flatten Zululand, and *maybe* Scandanavia (pathetic island nation to the SW, horribly behind in tech).

I've met the rest of the world (or rather they met somebody on my continent and I got introduced), and managed to trade metallurgy for banking, economics, navigation, printing press, several hundred gold and ~100gpt. I used a leader to snag Smith's (I built Copernicus straight-up). So things are going pretty well.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

Spoiler Alert

Yes, I know this is the spoilers thread, but if you haven't fought the Vikings yet and you think you probably will, the tale below could spoil a surprise. (For those playing the 1.29 version, the Vikings are the "lonesome" civ in the PtW version.)

---

My war with the Vikings was one of the craziest I've ever fought. I'd recently started building tanks, and the Vikings were still just about halfway through the medieval era, with most of their medieval techs being on the top part of the tree. (My trades of technology for incense, sometimes directly and on one occasion throwing in gold and then selling additional techs the same turn to get my gold back, had done them a huge amount of good since I'd discovered them mired in the ancient era.) So all I had to do was land a few elite cavalry and tanks with infantry to protect the landings and they'd collapse very quickly, right? Wrong.

My initial landings went fine, capturing two cities in the north and two in the south fairly quickly (using forces from four transports). But then huge swarms of horsemen, archers, spearmen, and even a few chariots started coming after me. I've seen stacks of doom before, but never one so primative.

Fortunately, the AI was completely incompetent in its use of those units. First the counterattackers moved in on Birka in south central Scandanavia, but then I reinforced that city and took Trondheim in the north, and the Viking troops turned around and headed north where I'd spread my defenses thinner. The completely stupid thing was that the troops moved past some tanks sitting on a hill out in the open, causing damage to a great many units before they could even attempt an attack.

I got in additional tanks for reinforcements, chewed through the uninjured units of the stack and some of the injured ones, and got a lot of promotions. Lots of units ended up in the city the Vikings had planned to attack, so they turned their units around and left my city radius! That gave my tanks another turn to chew up the slow-mover survivors.

The AI's next attempt to mount an offensive was back in the south, but it had lost the chance to get the weight of numbers necessary to stand a chance against superior technology. Wounded tanks in the north healed and additional reinforcements landed, shifting the balance very heavily in my favor. The total war only took about nine or ten turns, but it was a lot tougher than I ever would have expected against such a primitive opponent. If I'd gone in with no offensive units stronger than cavalry the way I'd originally thought I probably would, I could have been in serious trouble. Even as it was, war weariness was starting to become a problem (partly because I was a Democracy, although I did have Universal Suffrage to help out). Huge maps definitely make for higher unit counts, probably because corruption is so much lower that even when civs don't control more territory than they would on a standard map, they get a lot more wealth and production out of it.

The war did have its good side, though. About eight leaders appeared, helping me rush SETI, the Internet, Longevity (since the AIs took forever to research Sanitation for me), and the Intelligence Agency, as well as founding a few armies. And in addition to the ones that had generated leaders, a little over twenty-five other tanks also achieved elite status.

Nathan

[Arrian]

I definitely plan a similar invasion, Nathan. I'll bring a few more units than you did, I bet.

Currently, I'm up to 1420, and I'm fighting a vicious war against Japan. I do not know (nor to I wish to know) how many Cavalry I lost killing their 3 Samurai armies. Suffice it to say it's a big number. Japanese resistance, however, is weakening. I've taken six cities, most of which were formerly American, and am poised to strike into the Japanese homeland.

Mongolia, Germany and America have ceased to exist.

I'm still running a Monarchy, but that isn't hurting me much. I sucked it up and sold Steam Power to Korea (the only strong AI civ out there) for a staggering amount of GPT. Add in a couple of luxury sales and I'm milking their economy dry.

My Palace is finally where I wanted it all along. I'll try to provide some screenshots tonight.

The only minor irritation (besides the time it takes to conquer civs on a huge map) was the French grabbing Magellan's. Other than that, it's smooth sailing.

-Arrian

[badams52]

Originally posted by Arrian
Other than that, it's smooth sailing.

No pun intended

Looking forward to the warmonger's finishes (is it no wonder the game took longer for them? and this is why I refuse to play the huge map )

[Arrian]

Yeah, the turns are really slowing down now.

Once I have wiped out Japan, the Zulu, and the Vikings, I may just hunker down for the SS win. Then again, there are several other weak civs out there and they've got luxuries...

-Arrian

[BigDork]

Hi everybody...

I've really enjoyed the AAR's so far. I'm surprised to see everyone's gotten so far. Then again it's been almost 2 weeks. Reading how all of you are progressing has made me really wanna pop my PtW disc back in the computer. I might even take another stab at 207. But I dunno about that. I've seen too many spoilers. Maybe 208 if it starts anytime soon.

Can't wait to read how the rest of the games end. Do you warmongers plan on invading the other continent or are you gonna sit tight and go for a peaceful victory? Looking forward to see what happens.

BigD

[nbarclay]

I'm expecting a 100K cultural victory sometime before 1600 AD (a little faster than I could launch a space ship this time around), assuming I'm right that the requirement to have double the culture of the closest competitor won't be a problem. Invading the other main continent is unnecessary.

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Invading the other main continent is unnecessary.

Which is the main reason why I think Huge maps are really not that much of a challenge. Unless a truly Killer AI appears (not very likely, given there is so much room to expand into and neighbors are so far away), it is relatively simple to just become dominant in your corner of the world and build build build until a peaceful victory is achieved.

I'm not criticising anyone's game, just pointing out my main gripe with Huge maps (other than the fact that they take forever to play!). I believe Mountain Sage's playstyle directly reflects his preference in map size; peaceful builder trumps the AI on Huge maps. (This is in no way a comment on Mountain Sage's play ability, which is, as far as I can tell, well above average).

My hat is off to anyone who actually tries to invade Continent 2.


Dominae

[nbarclay]

Dominae, my situation in this game is not at all atypical for standard-map games. I have ample power to conquer the other continent with MAs; Japan fell to me in one turn and Mongolia in two (only because terrain slowed me down), and even the most advanced civs on the other continent are no stronger than they were. But as is often the case in standard-map games, I don't want to go to the trouble. The biggest difference is that a 100K cultural victory is so much easier on a huge map; Firaxis really should have scaled that requirement to map size. On a standard map, I'd have to either take my chances on a diplomatic victory (definitely risky unless I'd identify number two and start a world war against them) or wait for the space race.

I do think huge maps make warmongering a bit trickier. The rival civs are bigger, and the enemy unit counts can be pretty amazing. On a standard map, I almost certainly would have taken out the Japanese and Mongols with cavalry given the same technological advantage, but as it was, they had enough units that I didn't even dare try for Japan and I only took a bite out of Mongolia.

Still, I'll agree that it's probably harder for killer AIs to evolve on a huge map, because AIs have to swallow twice as many other AIs to control the same percentage of the world on a 16-civ huge map as on an 8-civ standard map. AIs simply aren't geared for the level of aggression that requires, in my experience (admittedly, not much of it on huge maps).

As for how good or bad huge maps are compared with standard maps for an essentially pure peaceful builder strategy, I wouldn't know. When the right opportunity arises, I always seem to be taken over by the dark side.

Nathan

[Dominae]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Dominae, my situation in this game is not at all atypical for standard-map games.

I think the difference is that, had Babylon not been located where they were, you could achieved the same with little to no "sweat". In smaller maps, the AI will declare war on you and is usually close enough to actually gets its units into good position. This means that it actually threatens you. On Huge maps, I imagine you can "sit back" until you've got an advantage.

I'm just extrapolating this from the AARs, by the way.


Dominae