AU 100 Kinda After Action Report

[Saygame]

First of all let me thank all of you who put together AU 100 and participated in the AU 100 DARs. Especially Nbarclay for all the work and setups. Much of the passion for this game is amply expressed by the amount of care and time all of you are putting in. Thanks! I hope to add my own experience to build upon.

I have to confess that this is neither a DAR nor a real after action report. I am playing AU 100 now and am at 1495 AD, at a break, and it appears my game, while different (see below) will arrive at approximately the same conclusion....Space Race victory or Diplomatic.

I have now played about 15 games with all different countries and leaders and I would like to share some interim working conclusions to see if others are experiencing the same. I am also considering Civ Anon (great spoof website, btw).

In my game, 6 of seven nations made Buddhism their state religion. With that modifier to diplomacy it became a lovefest. Only 1 (ten or so turns) war broke out and it was so inconsequential I forget who. Egypt and I broke out of the gate fast and quickly assumed the lead. Now I have about a 600 point lead on Equpt and a tech and gold producing majority. As long as I keep one eye on Power F9 and don't allow my army to fall too low to become a luscious target. the positive diplomacy lead I have build up should allow me to coast peacefully to the end. If peace holds up it will my first ever game of any Civ (1-4) that I have been entirely peaceful. Wow!


Working Conclusions
(and like Nbarclay I welcome dissenting views and ensuing discussion)


1, The finanacial trait is awesomly powerful when flood plains and gold are available. I noticed this first when I played Mali. Tech is still King in Civ IV, it would seem. And gold leads to Tech superiority. And with Tech, to cultural superiority. And eventually to Miliary superiority, if needed. I was disappointed to see how the vast majority of the AU 100 games followed pretty much the same course and the same outcome regardless of difficulty factor. Just a matter of when that outcome came (I am discounting a few games that were reported losses, I know).

Question: Is financial trait a gamebreaker?

2. War seems heavily based on the diplomatic quotient that is now visible ("+1 for Open Borders" etc). I like that visibility. And yet it can be now be manipulated. You can use religion and other things to a lesser degree to invoke war on you. Good thing? Dunno. But I now perceive sizeably more control over my war state.

3. I agree that Golden Age is watered down from Civ 3. Yet the ability to call the GA timeframe is awesome. Saving three Great Persons for the endgame second GA is a cool endgame supercharge. Might even be a trump card play in a close game.

4. (Self-awareness) Playing an AU game made me play slower, more methodcally, and with more breaks (8 hours compared to 12-16, lol). I noticed after breaks how I became more attentive to detail and had a chance for ideas to percolate up in my downtime (even sleep!). Not that dreams about pulchritudinous females vanished, mind you. Just intervened.

5. (Self awareness)- I have concluded that despite much study, I am no genius when compared to the Civ 3 individual brain trusts I have encounted. I have concluded that I am smart but slow to pick up and use naunces. And nuances are large when playing equally matched talent.
I have also determined that when at war, the excitement generated for me by near run battles make me overlook the diplomatic and technology races that are so critical. I am so eager for next turn I forget to tend to the mundane long term. I can literally forget to mind the farm (pun intended).


6. I am chagrined that the AI is so poor at handling military force. Only a greatly overstrength army (like 50 units stacks in Civ3) can overpower me. Course, that can happen to me in the early game, intent as I become on building things and monitoring city locations and resources.
But overall isn't the state of AI cybernetics sufficiently advanced to produce a slightly more intelligent AI response on the higher settings rather than using increased units and quantity to abuse my armies. It has been my largest disappointment in the Civs that bulk and handicapping the human player have been chosen to stratify the difficulity levels. I would rather play "Bruno the Inept but Massive" as a leader than have that factored in as my sole way to increase difficulty. The current difficulty factor seems to work but I prefer a smarter opponent than Bruno bashing me with both hands tied behind my back.

7. That said (6 above), Civ is still the greatest game, for me (IMHO), of all times. Course History is my passion.
And true, I was a gaming professional (distributor and retailer, if you're interested) back in the day when Tandy made my 64K RAM computer and even before then when I had to load my Avalon Hill codes by cassette tape. My dreams of gaming evolution have come true with Sid and Civ.

But then I know I have lots of company!

As more thoughts percolate up, I will share them. This one is long enough for now.

Cheers



"There are only two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want. The other is getting it." Oscar Wilde

[Saygame]

And my cut and paste skills aren't too awesome either....sorry for the midpost disconnect....

[joncnunn]

Saygame, you can edit your own post.

Originally posted by Saygame
And my cut and paste skills aren't too awesome either....sorry for the midpost disconnect....

[joncnunn]

On the regardless of difficultly level, same pattern seen; that's in part because those on the high levels made fewer mistakes.

#1: Washington's starting area was tailor made to show off the traight. Floodplains and lots of grassland rivers.
And grass + forest as well.
That traight isn't as useful on say lots of regular plains and few grasslands because fewer cottages could be built pre-Biology on such a map.

#2: It is somewhat offset by how things compound. If the civ in question won't open the borders because they don't like you, you can't spread your religion to them, which leads to them not liking you even more.

#3: The other powers themselves are quite useful in their own right. If you say have a Religious, Artist, and Merchant, you can have a GA-lite by building a shrine, cultural bombing a city, and making a trade mission. Then upgrade your military with the gold.

#5: The military AI in Civ IV seems better than in Civ III. I still see some pointless attacks on cities where a pillage of the countryside would be a better choice. It part the AI suffers from what most AIs in any game suffer from -> They can't see the forest because the trees are in the way.

[Fribur]

#2: It is somewhat offset by how things compound. If the civ in question won't open the borders because they don't like you, you can't spread your religion to them, which leads to them not liking you even more.

This game I avoided this problem for the first time by not converting to my religion after I founded it. I lived without the single happiness bonus (and that's all it is, until you get the temple of solomon or it's equivalent built), and deliberately kept my borders closed to prevent development behind me.

I just waiting for my or their religion to spread on its own. Really, it was their religion I wanted, so that I could convert to theirs to make them happy without having to open my borders up.

It worked beautifully, and led to a situation where 5 of the 7 civs had the same religion, and everyone loved everyone. The other two? We all worked together to wipe them out, and then I coasted to an easy Diplomacy victory .

[Modo44]

It seems the AI gets angry if you have any deals with their enemies. If you sign Open Borders with anyone, you are bound to make some of them angry -- even more so if you trade with them. It looks like waiting a bit before signing Open Borders can be a good move for the early diplomacy.

[Arrian]

I've learned to avoid converting to my religion right away. Once I've converted a neighbor or two, and/or become militarily strong enough, I'll convert for a while, until Free Religion comes along.

-Arrian

[joncnunn]

Athough, if you have closed borders with someone, your rating with them is probably going to be at best 0.

Originally posted by Modo44
It seems the AI gets angry if you have any deals with their enemies. If you sign Open Borders with anyone, you are bound to make some of them angry -- even more so if you trade with them. It looks like waiting a bit before signing Open Borders can be a good move for the early diplomacy.

[Fribur]

See, that's not true. I closed my borders for almost the entire AU100 Game, and I won diplomatic victory. For most of the game, even with borders closed, most of my neighbors liked me. Trade relations helped, and after I converted to a neighbor's religion (never opened the border, her religion spread to one of my cities on it's own) it was easy to keep everyone happy.

Open vs. Closed borders doesn't necessarily make you hated by your neighbors at all. It provides a point or two bonus with some civs to open to them, but you can make them happy through other means.

If you look through my AU100 game, you'll see there were a few things I did to keep everyone happy. I donated a city to Isabella once, so she would be the one dealing with Genghis on one front after I declared war on him. I converted to a religion that was widely held in my world. And I once donated a few free techs to a few civs to keep everyone happy.

I never opened my borders until late game, with anyone, and only because there was no value in keeping them closed anymore.

[Cort Haus]

I agree with those who are saying that avoiding both open borders and a state religion can pay off. I think this was the first game where I made secularism an early policy, and now I use it all the time.

Getting a +1 for open borders with civ A is not so good if the ensuing trade soon gets you and -4 with Civ B. Then it gets worse when the demands to stop trading start coming in.