Emperor games C3C: how to improve your skills

[Mountain Sage]

Lethe,

One question. Did you sleep at all during the last 24 hours?

TO EVERYBODY: please save your game the turn before you win it diplomatically. You will need it...

[lethe]

1470: We enter modern era. 6 turns to go on fission, palace prebuild will be 8 turns, so got room if I need luxury. Last turn I managed to end my turn without renewing the silk deal, and thus I lost out on the silk. Probably forever.

Looks pretty certain that the election will be between me and Greece.

1500: Research Fission. United Nation in 11. Scandinavia has a stack of 4 cavalry wandering around my territory. Setting up more deals with him. That turns out to be impossible. Tell him to remove forces or declare war. He declares war. I've purposefully not built any offensive units. Going to move lots and lots of infantry into the threated cities. Also will do some mass drafting. Fortunately LOTS of cities are building wealth, so the Tank brigade is three turns away. I do however have a stack of 25 artillery lying around. Send it and ~25 conscripts to the front.

His sod containts:
5 Cavalry
1 Warrior !!!
1 Swordsman
3 Berserkers
2 Guerilla
4 Med Inf
6 Riflemen
6 Infantry

The town it is next to has 30 or so Infantry defending it. I have a war chest of well over 10000 gold. ALL mainland cities will be producing a tank every second turn.

Research set to computers, which will be done in 6. Not taking any chances, Mech Inf will hold the line.

1505: My artillery barrage and the enormous reinforcements that materialized seemingly out of nowhere made his sod step back into his territory. Damn I wish I would have 2 tiles to the border, but what can one do? This town has all culture buildings and some small wonders, and is still locked in a border dispute.

I hammered em again to make sure they were _all_ at 1hp and would have to go to a barrack town, removing them from the equation for three turns. In three turns I will have 30ish tanks. That should then grow with about 15 tanks every 2 turns. I'm not going to set foot in his territory, but anyone who steps over the border will be shot.

1515: Built 18 tanks. Setting all cities to produce a round of bombers before more tanks. His entire navy must be bombed into oblivion. (I myself don't have a navy. At all. Not one ship.)

We killed 22 of his units, as he broke his sod into fragments. He now has a berserker near our border, but that's about it. Ground power is overwhelming. Time to bring in the fly boys!

Artillery and mobilization makes a human controlled civ virtually impregnable after railroads are in place.

1520: Kill about 30 mixed troops, ranging from infantry to berserkers. Mostly riflemen and berserkers actually. Lost three tanks. (Elite tanks with 2hp attacking 1hp berserkers.)

About 45 kills total with elite tanks. Zero MGL.

We switch to War-Time mobilization level, as even island cities now have nothing worthwhile to build.

1525: Built a heap of bombers. Sank a couple of ships. Killed a grand total of 6 of his units. (All that were in my borders.) Lots of wounded tanks take the opportunity to heal for a turn.

Computers in 1.

1530: Elite tanks kill 2. No MGL. We sink his navy. Or the lion part of it atleast, sunk some 11 ships. Peace talks are finalized, and Ragnar gives me Peace Treaty and 650 gold in exchange for me not annihilating him. I still upgrade all infantry to Mech Inf.

Forces after the fight are:
17 workers (some got snatched!)
3 infantry, which are still plodding toward upgrading.
70 Mech Inf
17 tanks
18 bombers (these guys were very unlucky vs the ships, lost probably 10-12 to aa fire.)
30 artillery

1550: 1 turn left on UN. I call everyone up and sign them up in MPPs except the Greek. Get everyone but Ragnar up to Gracious with tech gifts, usually meaning all or nearly all techs. Ragnar sulks at Cautious.

1555: I win the UN elections. 8 votes for me, 2 for Alexander. The bastard Ragnar prefered him. I knew I should have annihilated him on general principle back in the early medieval.

[lethe]

MAJOR SPOILER ALERT! Post-game thoughts to follow.

First off, yes, I slept a sound 6 hours MS. Just had an exam and next class hasn't started yet, so life is easy for this psychology student. Soon enough time will be at a premium again.

I feel pretty confident in saying that I won this game in 670bc. There are sea lanes to _everyone_, and I got in first on all deals. I had 7 luxuries from 400ish bc till I screwed up and lost silk in the 1500s. Under such circumstances the Great Lighthouse is probably the best wonder in the game. I guesstimate that if I would have had to wait until Astronomy to trade I'd have been stuck with 3-4 luxuries. That would have meant using the luxury slider, and that would have eaten away my devastating tech lead.

I don't think the island south of Portugal paid off. I spent a fortune rushing in culture there.

I spent another fortune rushing in culture along my long border with the Vikings. They also built all later Small Wonders. Yet some of them were unable to push out their border to the midpoint between them and the vikings. I was expecting to get flips there, but it never happened.

Good thing that I've learnt to be aggressive in expansion. Putting a town on the island with both coal and rubber was in retrospect a brilliant move. 5 tiles, 2 industrial resources.

So I had 4 rubber, and never traded any of it. Denying a goodly chunk of all civs the ability to build anything scary in the military department. It would have been better if my dividing line with the Vikings had been one more city to the east, then I'd have gotten a 5th rubber as well as uranium.

Everyone was Polite through the game. Ragnar got grumpy after the war, but what is to be expected. All in all he stole 2 workers, and 3 tanks died in counterattacks. He lost 60-70 units. I don't think his force depletion study showed that.

There were nearly no wars. Greece fought Hittites, Greece "fought" Aztecs. The former actually had some battles, the latter I think went down in history as the War With No Bloodshed. It's a wonder they even found each other to declare war!

Hittites and Carthage had a few early wars, but even when sharing a continent they failed to take any cities from each other. Which was symptomatic of the entire game really.

Where I screwed up: Placing Haarlem, the chokepoint city north of the desert NE of the actual chokepoint!!! This almost gave me nightmares, but I decided to risk it.

Not settling on the southern end of the Greek continent was a mistake. I _think_ I could have payed for culture there as well, and it would have led to more native resources.

Astute readers might notice that my detail level takes a dive after the ancient age. That's because my focus took a dive. I figured I'd pretty much won by then, and I was right in this assumption. From then on I never mm citizens, other than checking for possible riots. I don't agonize over build orders except in border towns, where culture comes first. I rush on impulse most of the time, not going around and writing down all figures and puzzling out the most bang-for-the-buck.


How would I have played this "naturally"?
1) I'd have killed Vikings before they got invention, or atleast crippled them by then.
2) Either immediately after Vikings, or upon Mil Trad I'd have taken the Aztecs island too.
3) Gone communist.
4) Once they cleared out all the jungle take Carthage. Might have been tempted to take Hittites as well. (I have a huge craving to be alone on my landmass.) Though this would have been well and truly into the realm of 1 shield cities even with Courthouses and police stations. Well and truly into crippling all my cities under communism I guess.

I haven't played on a large map in ages, if ever. This felt very much the right size. Got an empire of about the same size as my normal maps let me, but without crippling corruption. Even the island south of Lisbon got productive, even if it never payed back the investment. And turns don't get so _horribly_ slow as they do on huge maps.

It was a nice challenge, and I played with the additional restraint to not build offensive units until I had been attacked. Which was high risk before factories, but virtually 100% safe after.

It would be nice if the Civilopedia mentions the small nugget of information that makes The Great Lighthouse THE best wonder on some maps.

I'm going to take a nap now. (And yes, there are plenty of screenshots, but holding off on those for a few days. People can skip reading posts, but all eyes will stray to the minimaps...)

[Krill]

Thank you for clearing up the rules situation back there, but unfortuneatly the save has been deleted by this stupid computer.
The save for the Maya;
standard map, 7 other civs:
Ottomans, Spain, Rome, Portugal, France, China, Dutch
70% water,
Normal settings for heat/humidity
4 million years,

[Krill]

And the starting position.

[Mountain Sage]

Lethe,

Wow, excellent game. I won in 1660AD.
Let's wait a few days for the stragglers to catch up and then I'll tell you why I asked you to save the game prior of your diplomatic win...

[lethe]

Originally posted by Mountain Sage
Lethe,

Wow, excellent game. I won in 1660AD.
Let's wait a few days for the stragglers to catch up and then I'll tell you why I asked you to save the game prior of your diplomatic win...

Next time I will save my notes and post them in more bite-sized chunks. But I really got caught up in playing, so it all got posted at once.

[Aqualung71]

Thought I'd try this one too now AU501 is finished! Don't have time for a commentary on this one, but I've noticed a few unusual things already:

1. Upon first meeting AI civ's seem to be polite. Isn't this strange for Emperor?
2. AI's don't seem very aggressive (except Greece who is a million miles away and declared war for no reason). So far have only had one extortion demand and that was for 13g
3. Not too many AI-AI wars seem to be happening either
4. AI tech pace seems slower
5. Cool map!

Any comments on the above MS?

Anyway, my start-to-finish strategy of getting into Monarchy and bashing my neighbours (ie, Vikings and Carthage) into extinction then being a benevolent Democracy after that is not working, since everyone's so nice to me that I feel really bad even thinking about war!

So instead I'll use the Monarchy unit support to maintain a good defensive army and MP to keep the citizens happy if necessary (obviating the need to acquire luxuries, though I'll trade them if available to help the AI with it's ingrained attitude problems). Have finally succeeded in spacing my cities closer, so the smaller territory (I'm number 10, yay!) will still be competitive. I'll try to play without declaring at all in fact, and will only hit the Vikings if they hit me first!

Looks like Greece will be the leader, so no need to keep them particularly happy cos they'll never vote for me (assuming I get the UN, cos I won't be 1 or 2, eeks!). But if they declare, I'll have to bring everybody else in on my side.

A Diplomatic victory objective from go-to-woe certainly changes the way you approach the game! But even though I love building, becoming a total PP without aggressive military planning also takes something out of the game for some reason. Good stuff MS!

[DrSpike]

I'm in. I'll start tonight.

[Dominae]

Well, it turns out the starting location (actually, two tiles away from it) is good enough for an OCC victory. I won a Diplomatic victory in 1685AD, scoring 2106 points ('William the Clever').

I'm not going to bore you with a detailed queue, mainly because I did not keep one. I'll just present the highlights.

As you'll see below, I played this game quite differently from your standard OCC.

1. Early Years

The starting location looked quite good, with the lands to the SE promising more Hills (essential to any OCC game). I therefore moved the Worker East to see what was what, and sure enough it made sense to move the Settler down the River. The next turn I moved Settler SE again, hoping that would put me amidst even more hilly terrain. Founding Amsterdam on turn 3 I was rewarded with the sight of two Gold Hills, four normal Hills (I dreamt of Iron Works!) and a Furs tile....not bad at all, considering Amsterdam's coastal, too.

Since I have the early queue, I may as well post some of it:

4000BC: Worker E, Settler SE
3950BC: Settler SE
3900BC: Amsterdam
3550BC: Curragh
3400BC: Warrior
3250BC: Worker
3150BC: Warrior
3000BC: Conscript Warrior from Goody Hut
2950BC: Curragh
2850BC: Ceremonial Burial from Goody Hut
2590BC: Granary
2350BC: Temple
2310BC: Worker
2230BC: Worker
2030BC: Barbs from Goody Hut
1910BC: Writing
1600BC: The Colossus
1575BC: Join Worker
1400BC: Join 2 Workers
1350BC: Philosophy, Code of Laws for free
1275BC: The Mausoleum of Mausollos
1050BC: Join Worker, Amsterdam now size 12
975BC: Literature
775BC: The Great Library

Only the techs I researched myself are listed.

Due to world geography, my two Curraghs were able by 775BC to get Contacts every civ but the Persians (whom I imagined were small and almost-conquered since I could not find them anywhere!). For some reason no civ researched Ceremonial Burial...I must have sold it for 6-7 times its net worth (and I got it for free!).

I traded techs whenever it was profitable to do so, but also sometimes kept techs away from the AI as long as possible. I did this in order to have currency for purchasing foreign Workers, if any of them were silly enough to end the turn in their capital. I was blessed with 4 such Workers, 2 Viking and 2 Hittite.

Oh, and just as proof that it is possible to be a strict Builder on the higher levels: upon completion of the Great Library, three of the world's four Wonders were in my possession (and the Greeks only completed The Oracle one turn before I finished the Great Library!).

I'm a big fan of the Mausoleum of Mausollos for OCC games now, by the way. 200 Shields for an upkeep-free Cathedral that generates 12-14gpt in Tourist Attraction money come the Industrial era is really really worth it.

As you can see below, Amsterdam hit the 20spt "sweet spot" right at size 12. I was quite happy about that.

[lethe]

Krill, is this an AU game? I noticed philosophy as an optional tech?

[Dominae]

2. Middle Ages

I researched Republic myself, but otherwise rode the Great Library to Education, getting as far as Gunpowder for free on the southern branch.

I made a very bad mistake when switching out of Despotism by not anticipating how many Entertainers I was going to need during Anarchy. This cost me three pop points during the 5-turn Anarchy period. I'll have to remember for next time to keep the Food box nice and full.

The Greeks gave me a bit of a scare by landing a Swordsmen/Warrior combo and declaring war the next turn, but thankfully my defenses were just strong enough to repel the attack. I got some other civs to ally with me against the Greek threat, and sat back to enjoy the positive WW.

I thought I was really in control of the Wonder situation (I built Sistine and the Great Wall because I had nothing better to do), when the Vikings got a SGL and rushed Leo's. Normally this would be good as it would help prevent a Wonder cascade from happening, but unfortunately the Greeks discovered Astronomy the very same turn! They proceeded to use their Leo prebuild to complete Copernicus' immediately!

Oh no! What's an OCC game without Copernicus?!

I was determined to win this thing anyway. As the Medieval era went on, I found myself falling behind in tech, which is somewhat typical of OCC games but more worrisome here as I did not have Copernicus and this was a Large map.

Then it dawned on me: perhaps I could try to win an OCC without doing any more research! I would get Shakespeare's to grow my city nice and big, and pile up the Gold. Then I would buy or, better yet, steal any and all techs available, selling them to the less-advanced nations. gpt and the Intelligence Agency would be my best friends.

And that's exactly what I did. I avoided Theory of Gravity (it felt strange after rushing to it in every other OCC game I've played), bought Democracy and Free Artistry, and used that SGL I had kicking around from way back to rush Shakespeare's. What a fun Wonder! I grew to a comfortable size 20 very rapidly, just in time for the Industrial era.

The AI being what it is I still managed to secure the Theory of Evolution despite having to wait for the other civs to research all the necessary techs for me. This ensured a strong showing for the rest of the game...hopefully enough to win. All I had to do now was wait for the AI civs to research techs, and steal them whenever I had enough cash.

Below is a list of all the techs I stole, each "Carefully" (edit: that should read "Safely"). Everything from Steel onward I used a Spy for:

Physics
Theory of Gravity
Steam Power
Electricity
Replaceable Parts
Scientific Method
Steel
Radio
Flight
Motorized Transportation
Computers
Fission

The other Industrial and Modern era techs I traded for with the less-advanced nations, using the techs I stole as bait. In all, I failed a handful of Diplomatic attempts (at the cost of ~8000 Gold), and an equivalent number of Spy attempts (at the cost of ~16000 Gold).

Just to show you why it was a good idea to buy instead of research myself: after getting Electronics from the Theory of Evolution, I set Science to 100% only to discover it would take me 31 turns to research Radio!

Below is a screenshot from just after I finished Hoover. Yes, that's a lot of Productivity; Republic plus Railroads plus Colossus plus Golden Age is quite the combo (I should have declared war on someone and entered Mobilization!).

[Dominae]

3. Modern Times

I just sped through the end of the Industrial in my report above, but it actually took a long long time. Most of the AI civs decided to declare war on someone (not me; perpetual ROPs since Writing took care of that), and many entered Fascism to do so. This slowed down the tech rate immensely. Since I was not set up to do my own research I had to sit back and wait for them to do it.

To improve the situation somewhat, once I reached ~25000 Gold I stopped sucking gpt out of the AI. I only had about 4-5 techs left to go until Fission, and was generating a decent 400gpt on my own. A ways back I also decided to "modernize" all the backwards civs (Aztecs, Babylonians and Persians): they were still struggling at the end of the Medieval era, and I gifted them into the end of the Industrial era over a couple of turns!

Why do this? Well, I was really hoping one of the Scientific civs would get Fission for free so that I could win as quickly as possible. But only the Greeks would be getting there in a timely manner. To maximize my chances I made sure the Babylonians and Persians entered the Modern era at the same time as everyone else.

A good plan, but it failed: the Greeks got Computers for free, and the other two both got Ecology. Boo. I stole Computers from the Greeks to start a UN prebuild using SETI. I actually managed to complete SETI before anyone researched Fission (they were busy with Rocketry...apparently they thought a Spaceship win was the best way to beat me!). The Vikings got Fission, I stole it and traded it around (mistake!), and all of the world's civs started on the UN the very same turn.

I used the spare cash I had lying around to investigate the cities that were building the UN and see what my chances were for victory:

Delphi (Greeks): 16 turns
Bergen (Vikings): 17
Uruk (Babylonian): 30
Leiria (Portugese): 29
Hattusas (Hittites): 12
Pasagardae (Persians) 15
Texoco (Aztecs) 16
Rusicade (Carthaginians): 35
Amsterdam (Dutch): 10!

The Hittites gave me quite a scare. Due to Pollution that kept appearing (I had no time to build Mass Transit), I actually lost a turn on my UN build. With some serious micromanagement I got back on track though, irrigating just enough to join Workers, turning them into Civil Engineers, then mining the tiles back again to increase production.

The last few turns Amsterdam suffered terrible starvation, but it was all worth it: the vote was unanimous for William, minus Alexander who voted for himself (typical).

[Krill]

Krill, is this an AU game? I noticed philosophy as an optional tech?

Sorry, should have said that, YES it IS an AU game. version 1.03 with flavours. I play all my games with the AU mod. The game is quite easy, for an AU mod game, and I was not messed around with at the start by any AI.

[vmxa1]

Nice story Dominae. Thanks for the birds eye view of OCC in C3C.