The religion game

[Ming]

sinz... do you play with the "aggresive AI" option on or off?

[rah]

I guess my thinking is different because of the MP vs SP mentality.
If you build settler first, unless you start with a warrior and keep him home, you're usually eliminated before the settler is finished. The trick is to start building a warrior for some turns and you can switch before it's finished so if someone shows up you can switch back and finish it before they can waltz in. Which also puts the priority on BW since once you have that you and get to size two, you can always whip a defender just in case. AND AXEMAN ARE MORE IMPORTANT EARLY IN MP.
So please keep that in mind when you listen to us discuss strats. Different game. And In an mp game, only one person gets the oracle for COL. So it is sometimes much better to see which neighbor has already built a shrine and try to take it.
Though sometimes it is humorous when you have a half dozen people in a game, and it gets to turn 40 and both early religions haven't been founded yet because we're all racing to construction.

[slnz]

Oh, sorry. Everything I say is 100% meant for SP play, I don't know anything about human vs human play.

I play with Aggressive AI off, since it tends to nerf the AIs tech rates too much and make the game easier than without it. Even with it on, though, there's a quite long grace period at the start of the game during which the AI won't attack you, even if Always War is on. It's very rare to have an enemy Civ invade you before the barbs do.

[rah]

Yeah and we're even more different since we play MP with no tech trading and no diplo victory condition active. Totally different game, so when I practice in SP I use the same settings. Since you can't backfill your techs by trading, I think it makes SP harder. But I'd love to discuss that since some think it makes it easier because the AI's can't trade either.

[slnz]

Hmm... seems my post was lost to the great void of bits. New try.

I'd say it depends on the difficulty level - a level you struggle on becomes much harder with no tech trading, and a level you usually win you might win even more comfortably.

Also spy tech stealing and cottages are more prominent with no tech trades, a SE often relies partly on bulbing monopoly techs and trading them around for a handful of others.

[rah]

I have problems on EMP level. Wins are hard fought and not common.
How much of that is settings and how much of that is using a MP mentality, I don't know.

[Father Beast]

Settling Merchants in the Wall Street City is pretty powerful too. They also bring +1 in addition to the money, which means an extra 1/2 pop. Also, if I know I'll be pumping out Great Scientists, settling one in the capital and using the second to build the academy (or the other way around) means the one that's been settled brings +9 beakers + 75% (counting only library, univ and obs, cause laboratory comes too late in the game) + 30 % (average of 3 religions) + 50 % (Academy) + 100 % (Oxford) = 32 beakers (and +2 hammers) per turn. Not something to snub at, IMO.

I've been using all my great scientists to build academies. First in my highest science city, and send the next one to the next city. by game end I've got some 5 cities with academies.

Oh, and hey, sorinache, it's good to see that not everyone is a fast and dirty warmonger. I'm going to get out of settler soon, I keep telling myself. I just can't seem to stop playing these games I've already won.

A worker is one of the first things I build, either that, or a scout. both are pretty high priority. But I'll have to try your grow first method sometime.

[fed1943]

I'm trying to enter deeply in the MP world. Everybody says MP and SP are different games.
Sure they are. But why? More precisely what AI makes different from us, humans?
Because said difference ( from AI play to human play) must be the only difference between
the two games.
Can someone be kind enough to give me some hints?
My thanks in advance.

[Ming]

There is a big difference between MP and SP.
The very first is that in SP, the AI will not attack you in the real early turns. You can afford to crank out a worker or settler or two, and not build a defender as you first build. If you do that in a SP game, it's possible a wandering warrior will come up and take your capital and elimiinate you from the game

But more importantly, two real differences. The AI kind of sucks on military strategy. Their idea of war is to build a big stack and use brute force. While big stacks are good, they don't use them right. A human player that knows what he is doing is far more effective and deadly.

Secondly, if you have a key strategy that you usually apply when playing SP, you can usually get what you want.
You might target certain wonders earlier than the AI does, or your strategy might depend on a combo wonders.
Well... in MP, others are doing the same thing you are, so you have to get used to playing in a different fashion.
Humans are far smarter and with multiple people wanting the same thing you might, it really lowers the chance of you getting them.

Also remember that in SP, you can manipulate the AI's through releations. You can usually get a good read on whether somebody is going to come after you. The AI gives off lots of signs that you have learned to understand. In MP, it's much more difficult to know where the trouble is going to come from. Sure, if you see a big stack of units on your border, they might be coming for you, but humans shield their intentions much better than the AI does. You have to be more prepared and be able to respond in any direction.

Just some initial thoughts.

[Father Beast]

In the religion spreading thing, I've been sending out missionaries to convert my cities, and thy sometimes fail and I try again. I wonder if it's just better to build three missionaries of each kind and set them to auto-spread their religion. That way I could just let them go and I would then go about whatever else I was doing.

[trev]

The failure rate increases for each individual city as more religions are added, I believe for no existing religions in a city, the missionary is always successful, maybe. about 5 religions in a city, it drops to about half a chance of failure when you try to spread an extra religion. There maybe someone around on the site who knows the exact figfure, I do not. The odds of success probably do not vary if auto settings are used, so i see no benefit in trusting actions to the computer in any way.

[fed1943]

Thanks Ming.

[slnz]

The failure rate increases for each individual city as more religions are added, I believe for no existing religions in a city, the missionary is always successful, maybe. about 5 religions in a city, it drops to about half a chance of failure when you try to spread an extra religion. There maybe someone around on the site who knows the exact figfure, I do not. The odds of success probably do not vary if auto settings are used, so i see no benefit in trusting actions to the computer in any way.

IIRC it's a separate 10% chance per religion, so the chance of success for spreading the 7th religion in a city is 0.9^6 = ~53%

[Theben]

I've been using all my great scientists to build academies. First in my highest science city, and send the next one to the next city. by game end I've got some 5 cities with academies.

It might be better to settle the scientists in some of those cities that have academies already. A +50% increase in a low science city probably isn't as good as a settled scientist in the Oxford city running Representation, for example... 9 * 225%(lib,uni,observ,oxford,acad- no monasteries)= ~29 !

[rah]

Yeah, I usually only place it in my cap or on that rare occasion where I have a better city.
Captured enemy capitals are usually potentials thought, but in most cases there already is one there when I capture it. I do keep track of GP that my neighbors get early. Sometimes that dictates my attack timeline.