How to win on Deity Builder-style, step-by-step.

[Drakan]

Continued Sid storyline ... II


After scouting briefly to the north it soon became apparent that due to the ongoing war with the Celts, the Byzantines had almost every single tile which was either a hilltop or a mountain covered with at least five units. No chance of obtaining a defensive bonus landing on the northern part of their island.

So I resorted to use the 3-cavalry Army to protect the assault task force and secure the beachhead knowing well that the AI doesn’t attack Armies on open ground (at least not until they have artillery and/or lethal bombers, that is). So I chose a small hill-top right beside Constantinople to land an Army for cover, 48 cavalry and 20-28 swiss pikes which I upgraded later. The (celtic) privateers to the north had taken their toll on my unescorted scouting galleon.

The Army would cover my SoD. I took Constantinople. Killed a lot of AI units. Only seven or so cavalry died. My military adviser rated me weak compared to the Byzantines. Their defenders were musketman.

In the ensuing byzantine war nine MGLs were spawned. 7 from attacking cavalry and 2 passively from defending rifleman which were by now almost all elite. I had to take all seven cities to conquer them. By 1615 A.D. the war had ended. I'd conquered Byzancium. The war would've finished earlier on had I been smart enough to pillage the byzantine saltpetre and iron tiles asap from making landfall with one of my 3-cavalry Armies. I founded four more cities on their island to ease the limit on my Armies so I could bring them up to eleven. The Armies were only uploaded with three cavalry (one elite* and two veterans) so I could transport them round in galleons despite having the Pentagon.

I set as my next target Japan.

------------------
Digression:

Why was I warmongering so much If this was meant to be a builder-style game ? Well first, out of sheer boredom, I must admit -gulp-, but I was also following a plan, really. In order to win a diplomatic vote at the UNs. you need either to:

1. Build the UNs
2. Control 25% of the land
3. Have 25% of the world population.

So If I could take my pop up to 25% or more from the 18% I already had, I would ensure myself, at best, a diplo victory despite having the Vikings the UNs built in Trondheim and, at worst, it would neutralize the UNs power because the Vikings wouldn't call for a vote If they knew I was going to win. The AI is not designed to win the game, it's designed to deprive you from winning, which is wholly different.

End of digression

--------------------

The Celts had changed to Democracy and although the Vikings were still in Democracy the tech pace was fast. The Vikings were going to complete the UNs before me. So the Vikings were going to be one of the potential candidates. My plan was to become the second candidate.

After retaking the GL in 1.475 A.D. from the Portuguese at The Hague I got all medieval techs and Communism, Steampower and Nationalism. Perhaps I should've waited longer for Industrialisation to trigger my GA and beat the Vikings to ToE which they eventually built. I had to trade for Espionage. I had a prebuild ready (the Pentagon) for the Intelligence Agency. From that moment onwards I started stealing techs safely with a regular spy (at 68% success chance) at a price of 4.400 gold from both Celts and Vikings following Oystein's article on Espionage.

After stealing Replaceable Parts I stopped stealing techs all together. I had my Artys and Infantry now. I started building Artys. I didn't want to trigger some unwanted war by failing an espionage attempt on the Vikings or Celts despite the 68% success chance (that's only an odd of 2/3 of success chance in a Republic or 1/3 working against you). If war was unleashed with the Vikings I would loose all my cities in his island to him and two luxuries (gems and spices). That would hurt my increased population plan for the UN designee vote, so it wasn't worth the risk. So I started saving all the gold at zero research and spending it rushing hospitals, granaries, harbours and food related improvements. I also modified tiles from mines to irrigation to get the pop spike going in my core cities.

However, I noticed that the AIs had ignored a dead-end tech as Sanitation ! Being agricultural this was a must for me. Besides that, If I could place hospitals in all my core cities and negate that tech to the AI by not trading it I could bring my population up to well and above 25% of the world population and be one of the two -or three- potential candidates for the UNs vote. So I researched Sanitation and spawned a SGL in 1750, Cristiaan Huygens !! That was lucky. In my last twenty games or so I haven't spawned a sigle one. However It won't be in time to rush-build the UNs I'm afraid.

Japan was never going to vote for me because they had allied with the Celts earlier on the game thanks to my diplo MA blunder, so they could be conquered to prune the voting (Golden Bear ). I needed a fair amount of land to hit the 25% population mark anyways.

In the year 1.655 A.D. I sent 15 galleons over from Byzancium to Japan, which lay to the east of Netherlands, loaded with 10 Armies, 10 rifleman (mostly elite) and 10 elite cavalry. I like number ten . I landed an Army, further south, at a choke point which united both parts of the japanese island, cutting off effectively the japanese reinforcements from the eastern side of their island. I landed my 9 Armies to the north-western side of their island and fell on Tokyo IIRC. In 1700 A.D. the war had ended. I had spawned my 11th GML. In the Military Academy I built the 12th Army which meant I had more than 48 cities under control in the XVIII. I had now under control 4 medium sized islands at the center of the map plus 4 other smaller ones and many cities sprawled all over the map. The Vikings killed off their zulu neighbours. The Vikings built Hoovers in ... Madrid !!

After this, I had my doubts on whether I should invade the Iroquois or not, which were to the west of Greater Netherlands. The Iroquois, unlike the Portuguese, Byzantines and Japanese had five luxuries (dyes) and were trading them actively, so invading them could cause attitude problems with other AI trading partners which could hurt my UNs vote.

I had no doubts whatsoever that I could've conquered the Iroquois, the Americans, the Mongols, the Zulus and probably the English aswell. Not sure about the Arabs though and definately not the Celts and the Vikings.

The problem being that in doing so the game would stop being definately a builder's one (and it's rather tainted as it stands now) and that I would also leave the Celts and Vikings unchecked for too long proving disastrous perhaps (If they both change to demos and research ahead whilst I'm at still at war with everyone else).

While pondering all this, the Arabs sneaked attacked on me on Portugal island taking two ungarrisoned cities with Ansars and so the Iroquois invasion was called off indefinately. I signed MA with both Celts and Scandinavians against the Arabs. Couldn't risk these two MA with the Arabs against me. The Celts were already at war with them, I had to pay through the nose with the Vikings. That brought the Celts again down from Dem to a Fascist government, he he. That would slower the tech pace yet again, buying me precious time to steal techs. I placed a spy with the Arabs and they had some nice massive army: over 100 ansars, over 100 MI, over 100 swordsman, over 200 pikes, over 100 musketman, over a 100 archers ... more than 800 units were waiting for me If I dared take their challenge. I didn't, I'm a builder at heart -cough- coward -cough-.

Peace followed and I MMd my cities for maximum growth. In 1772 A.D. the game ranked me in the F11 screen as the number one civ. In 1792 A.D. I was the civ that held the most population in the world.

I had successfully hooked/traded all 8 luxuries ages ago. I negated trading two luxuries to the Celts to keep their pop unhappy and remain in Fascism. I had four oil supplies and only one rubber in my home island. I had one coal, two saltpetre, two iron, five horsies and nine incense on my home island. I thought by mistake they were spices I pillaged the rubber tile besides The Hague unless I wanted to upgrade my rifleman for just 30 gold. It was cheaper to upgrade the rifleman in a turn than rather have them building infantry and risk depletion of my only rubber source. The difference was only ten shields between rifleman (80 shds) and infantry (90 shds) so there was hardly any building time difference.

In 1804 A.D the Vikings which were researching under Communism at 30% science rate started building the UNs. Trondheim of size 12 (just the same as all the other AI cities which didn't have Sanitation except me) built the UNs in 1820 A.D. at 50 shields per turn in eight turns.

I was expecting to win the next turn in 1820 A.D. having 27% of the world's population when the vote was called, but the clever Vikings didn't call for it knowing all too well that I'd surely win because I had hardly autorazed three cities (the last portuguese, byzantine and japanese cities) and except for the Celts (which were gratious) and Arabs (were annoyed) the rest of the AIs would surely vote for me as the Vikings had been in war with almost everyone else and I had a been a good trading partner and had been "generous" towards them. Following the finds in Bamspeedy's article "AI attitude" I gifted 100 gold from time to time, every ten turns or so, to selected AIs throughout the whole game, specially Celts and Vikings.

Now I'm all dressed up and nowhere to go. I'm kinda stuck. I have 13.000 gold in my bank account. So I guess I'll have to resort to stealing techs safely once more every five turns ( I'm raking in 1350 gpt; 350 gpt from other civs and almost 2.000 gpt from my cities) and meanwhile wait every 11 turns for the elections to be held at the UNs.

I won't sell Sanitation, the Celts with more than 40 cities and being agricultural would surely overtake me as a potential second candidate to the UNs after the Vikings.

The Celts, the last time I checked on them with my spy at the Military Advisor screen had more than 800 infantry, 400 cavalry etc ... one heck of an army, sheesh.

Quoting Ision:

"The AI is stupid and remains so at Emp and above. BUT, the quantative advantage of the AI is so pronounced that it goes a very long way towards making up for the stupidity."

Monarch to Emperor: The Great Leap

Out of the 16 civilizations which started this Sid game only eight remained: Iroquois, Americans, English, Celts, Vikings, Mongolia, Arabs and Netherlands.

Spanish -snif-, Hittites, Russians, Ottomans, Zulus, Portuguese, Byzantines and Japanese were eliminated.

Only one would win.

So it seems I'm going to have to win by heading for Alpha Centauri, oh well. The SGL might come handy after all. I'm half way through the Industrial Ages and the Vikings know at least Fission (UNs built) and Rocketry (they have TOWs) the Celts remain in the Industrial Ages. So I'm running behind on eleven techs (nine industrial, two modern ages) from the leading tech civ, the Vikings. Will I be able to make it on time ? If It takes five turns to steal a tech safely, that's 11*5= 55 turns to play catch up on Sid, sounds rather daunting to me. Although I do have 13.000 gold on hold which can make for two and a half safe tech steals reducing the turn-advantage of the AI to approx 42 turns only. On top of that I have to deal with a cultural win at the 160 K mark by the Vikings and they already are in 114.000 points, I'm not sure I'll make it on time, we'll see. I'll have to fuel wars amongst the AIs to reduce their culture points by half and keep them at bay on Commie or Fascist governments. One just has to goad the AI into these governments even by gifting them Fascism or Communism so as to hinder them.

I'm counting on a UNs election held every eleven turns to pull this one off.

12-07-05 update

I could also send 150-200 artys in transports, tanks and 12 armies loaded with 4 infantry each (or mechs) so as to RoP rape the Vikings, and take Trondheim (home of the UNs). I only need to hold it one turn to hold the elections. The problem is that Trondheim could flip in those two turns. I would take with me my SGL and rush a Palace the same turn I capture it preventing any flip and guaranteeing my win, or the next once the resistors have been quelled. Trondheim is only size 12; so 12 Armies, tanks etc... would quell the resistors. Besides, capturing Trondheim would destroy the Viking's space ship. I only have around 50 artys right now. I would have to disband my cavalry Armies to make those 12 new infantry (or mechs) Armies.

Both options are risky. The war with the Vikings is only a matter of time. I keep stealing techs from them and they are bound to catch me some time or other and declare war on me.

I only steal techs from the Vikings because I want to remain friends with the Celts which are currently at war with the Vikings and besides, are less advanced due to their fascist government. I wonder whose to blame for that ?

I'll try to steal my way through to Miniaturisation to complete the Internet perhaps using the SGL If I make it on time to the SS victory.

War with the powerful and tech advanced Vikings cannot be held out for any longer. I would lose seven cities in their continent and 3 luxuries. I already lost gems because three of my cities flipped to them. I would probably lose Japan island aswell.

What I decide now will prove critical to win or lose this game. I really don't know what to do. I have to wheigh the pros and cons carefully. SS vic or UNs vote.

Btw, the Vikings have just built S.E.T.I. they have Mechs.

(From where the hell does Moonsinger, the Goddess, get her 40 cavalry Armies to attack ? That's 160 cities in Sid, My 12 Armies will have to do for now -sigh- )

13-07-05 update

I continued stealing techs safely (approx 4.700 gold) exclusively from the Vikings.

I studied what techs the Celts and English had already. So I stole Electronics and traded it with Mass Production for Flight from the Celts. The English paid me 75 gpt and I think they threw rubber in the deal IIRC.

Mass Production brought dockyards which helped to propel my gpt from 1.350 gpt to over 1.600 gpt, nice. Being seafaring you get an extra gold from coastal tiles. Out of my 13 core cities in my home island, ten were able to build dockyards. I had placed my cities to be in the coast except for the palace (Maastricht) which was in the middle of the island, the FP (Harlingen) and another city I cannot remember.

Life was nice in 1866 A.D. I had eight luxuries, peace and more than 48 cities. It was then when disaster struck. I failed an espionage stealing tech mission. I was caught and flagged.

The allmighty Vikings decleared WAR on me in 1866 A.D.

The following turn (1868) they took over three of my luxuries in their home continent and I lost 8 cities to them. New Amsterdam size-20 was burned to the ground. My last city was conquered in 1870 A.D. The SoD they sent after New Lawersoog were most impressive (check the save !).

The Celts army was bigger (900 infantry, 500 cavalry), but the Viking's was more modern (well over 500 mechs and 50 tanks, TOWS ... you name it. My world population dropped from 29% to 25% and many cities are starving with so many entertainers. I put the luxury slider up to 20% from 0%.

That's why I had cash-rushed before hospitals in Japan, Portugal and Byzancium so that even with a war with the Vikings (and losing my eight cities in their continent) I would still remain up and above 25% of the world population should there be a UNs vote.

I immediately signed MA's against the Vikings with the other six AIs. Some were already at war with him. In exchange I gave incense (which surprisingly I hadn't been trading this luxury to anyone. I didn't trade in purpose to the Celts so they would remain in Fascism but I thought I was trading my other incenses with the remaining AIs, oh well.)

I had 12 Armies and 4 islands to defend. I sent 3 four-cavalry Armies in transports to guard each of the four islands. I disbanded two Armies in my home island and harvested 100 shields each in Harlingen ( I had a stack of 50 artys so I didn't really need Armies defending back home) because I wanted to build new Armies and fill them with 4 mechs so as to resort to Plan B (taking over the UNs at Trondheim with artys) should Plan A (the SS race) fail. With horror I realized that because I had lost 8 cities to the Vikings I was now unable to build those two disbanded Armies because I lacked the neccesary cities. I was stuck with only 10 four-cavalry Armies. Unacceptable !

I quickly rushed 8 settlers in Portugal, Bizancium and Japan to found new cities (somewhat crowded) and bring back again my Armies to 12.

The Vikings started their amphibious assaults and took some cities. I quickly took them back killing off their mechs with my 4-cavalry Armies. Horsies against Mechs . Back in my home island I pounded with my Artys any Viking ships or transports that arrived. Many tanks were promoted to elite after engaging red-lined viking units which had been previously softened with Artys.

Following Oystein's great Espionage article I planted a spy four turns after I was flagged with a minimum percentage of being caught. I stole Computers from the Vikings using the most risky espionage mission (immediately) at only 2.400 gold, I was already at war with them and only made 875 gpt, so what the heck ! I succedeed, brave but foolish.

I entered the Modern Ages in 1884 A.D.

I am now 8 turns into this war with the Vikings and they are offering me peace already. I could sign it, trade for their 3 luxuries and I could rocket ahead of them to Miniaturisation, prebuild for Internet (or misuse my SGL) and start my SS victory. Everybody else will still be tech backwards and at war. The Vikings are only two techs ahead of me (Fission and Rocketry); stealing techs sure pays off in Sid. In Deity I never need to steal techs with my builder strategy.

The downside to this would be that I would get a rep hit for the first time in this game. So that'd be the end of the diplo victory for good. On the other hand, the Vikings cannot win them either after being at war with the whole planet ... So the diplo win would be ruled out for good should I impatiently sign for peace now when 13 turns of MA are still pending. I'll have to think it over.

At War I'm only making 875 gpt, half of what I was making during peace time. It would take me 38 turns to research Miniaturisation at war. perhaps it would be wiser to just steal it from under the Viking's nose and rush Internet with my SGL.

Things ain't looking so bad after all. I've cut their tech advantage from well over ten techs down to only two. If I sign a peace treaty and research monopoly techs they would soon become my puppy fueling my research with their viking gold. Life is good for the Dutch.

I have to calculate If the Vikings are going to beat me to a cultural win at the 160 K mark. Perhaps I should've taken over Trondheim with a RoP rape after all and won diplomatically rushing armies and forgetting to steal any further techs. A space race is going to take far too long. At least while the Vikings are at war -with everyone- their culture points are halfed so that slows their chance to a cultural victory. I forgot to do my maths. Damn it !

continued Sid storyline Part III (and final) seven posts below ...

Drakan

[vmxa1]

Nice report and judicious use of exploits on the GL gift and loan. Not sure if this is a true builder though.

[Drakan]

Yep, It seems the more I play it the more I'm getting geared towards a warmonger game . Problem is that I get bored at the slow tech pace, I need to spice it up . If this had been a Deity game I would've already finished it by now.

I guess it was, more or less, a builder example until 1.510 A.D. After that I've invaded the Byzantines and I'm planning on next the Japanese. I'll try and aim for the UNs vote or the SS vic however, although it'll be a tainted sid builder game I'm afraid albeit there's a builder's reason underlying all this ongoing warmongering . Sid (huge archipiélago) games are just too long, it's unbelievable.

Thanks vmxa1

[Golden Bear]

I'm impressed by your work here, Drakan.

I mostly play on Emperor and some on DG. I've never won a diplo victory. Usually I build the UN and just sit on it for fear that I'll be voted to a loss.

You inspired me to try for a diplo. I started Emperor on random Large map with Maya. I worked a river/cow situation into a settler pump. After that, I followed strictly rules for agreements and stayed out of wars as much as possible. One thing that I did not do was GL - I've gotten used to skipping it. But I'll do it in the next game. I used ROPs in any war situation and frequently outside of it in order to keep other civs at Polite or Gracious.

Anyway, I did win a diplo on the third vote - I needed to "prune" out two dissenting civs. I'm pretty stoked about this.

I've started a new Emp game and done the GL thing which is paying off. I really should try it on DG and maybe (gasp) on Diety.

Thanks for giving me the push in the correct direction.

Golden Bear

[Drakan]

You're welcome Golden Bear

[Shogun Gunner]

Okay, I think I'm ready for the plunge. I'm going to try again at Deity -- I'm not great at Emperor even -- but I plan on following your scripted gameplan, Drakan.

Thanks for such detailed information -- let's see how this goes

[Drakan]

Thanks Shogun Gunner What I missed about the folks playing sid games is that they played -normally- against only seven AIs and almost always failed to provide us with saves and with a detailed storyline so we could figure out just how the heck they managed to overcome some very dire problems. Many just posted the final save and simply said: I won, but didn't quite show you how. They failed to point out just how they made it. I think the saves really help understand what has been going on and you can clearly see the changes in tiles, cities, units, production, techs etc... it's a live portrait of the game. A good picture (save) is always worth a thousand words.

So that's why it has been my purpose to start my first Sid game trying to employ this builder strategy that works so well at Deity everytime. After two very quick failed attempts at huge pangaea of less than 20 minutes each or so playing which just don't count really, I was proving the point you needed to play archipiélago at Sid. although I do know for a fact that some very skilled players actually play on Pangaea and win .I've beeing recording with a vivid storyline what was going on, what I was planning to do and how I managed to overcome some dire situations.

On top of that I have posted all the saves which are worthwile highlighting for some reason or other. I have almost a save of each turn from my Golden Age onwards (I was really scared at Sid, just didn't know what to expect from the level really).

[Drakan]

Continued Sid storyline ... III. The End.



18-07-05 update

The Vikings beat me to Internet. So there go my hopes on a SS victory. Plan B it is. After twenty turns I sued for peace and signed a RoP with the Vikings. In this way I kept my flawless reputation with the other civs.

My population went down from 29% to 21%. They shelled the cities, units in garrison mode and all improvements in Japan and in Byzancium. They made like 4-5 landings on my homeland. Three cavalry Armies were killed defending. I'm now mm'g my cities to spike the pop growth up to previous levels of 25%.

The Americans were killed off by the Mongols. Now all civs have their islands all to themselves. I count with the Iroquoi, Mongol and English votes plus mine. Celts, Vikings and Arabs will abstain because I fought them in the past. That's 4 votes out of 7. A diplo win. Must avoid any further wars.

I've now sent 70 artys, 4 mechanized Armies, 8 tanks, 40 mechs etc... off to take over Trondheim. I'll rush the palace in one turn with my SGL. This first wave will take strategic positions around Trondheim. I'll send a second wave of units aswell (tanks preferably and 6 more mechanized Armies aswell as my precious SGL). No more tech-stealing for now, it's all cash-rushing Armies and units. I'd love to learn Miniaturisation however for my coastal cities.

I hope I can hold on to Trondheim for at least two turns with 10 mechanized Armies of 4 units each. I'll try to save the artys and pull them in Trondheim the next turn of the attack. I'll pillage the adjacent tiles to stop the Vikings capturing my artys the turn after I fire them. His lethal bombers are going to pulverize my units.

Something surprising. The Vikings are commy, so they get veteran spies. They've failed to plant twice (or thrice, cannot remember now) planting a spy in my capital. I have the Intelligence Agency there (Maastricht), I wonder If that has something to do with their failures (and although they get flagged when caught, they actually waited more turns than 3 turns each time before attempting another mission, so that isn't the explanation).

It's going to be rough.

19-07-05 update

Already have 100 artys, eleven 4-mechanized Armies and 48 tanks. I would need to cash-rush a further 30-50 tanks. Spying size 12 Trondheim reveals it's defended by 3 artys, 12 mechs, 5 TOWs and 3 tanks. Problem is that I cannot use my 11 mech Armies for attacking, only to pillage the tiles around Trondheim and move into it once captured and hold onto it for two turns. So its really up to 100 artys and 80-100 tanks to take over the city. A hell of a lot of units for just one city. Problem is that the Vikings would attack me with well over 500 mechs and a 100 tanks once I take over Trondheim. I need those 11 mech Armies green lined to hold them off at least one turn, supposing they actually can ...

21-07-05 update

In the interturn of 1958 the Vikings extorted me Sanitation or else ... I gave in. That was the final straw.

They already had 8 tactical nukes. They had 5 parts of the SS built. I had to attack them before they got to Synthetic Fibers (Modern Armour) and ICBMs. I just didn't feel like pitting myself against an evil sid AI armed with nuclear warheads.

Next turn, in 1959 I declared war on them. I had 300 units ready to take over Trondheim and one of my king William units was there personally supervising the preemptive assault , my Plan B.

Just before attacking I took a peak at Trondheim. It was defended by well over 25 veteran mechs and a further 15-20 units including a GML. More than 40 Viking units ...

I had deployed over a 100 artys, over 100 tanks, 12 mech Armies, 25 or so mechs (13 drafted), 12 swiss mercenaries, 8 cavalries, one AA gun, one SGL and one king unit. All in all, just over 300 units.

I fired an arty. Immediately I signed MA with everyone against the Vikings. Everyboby was already at war with them except for the Iroquois.

I used my mechs, cavalry and swiss mercenaries to pillage all tiles within a radius of 3-4 tiles around Trondheim. I pillaged mountains because that would consume two movement points of the viking units. That would, hopefully, buy me enough time -two turns- to hold UNs elections and become elected.

I fired the remaining 100 artys, only one hp was removed from each of the defender's units. I stacked-attacked my SoD of 100 tanks. 50 or so persished. Trondheim was captured.

After the Armies pillaged every tile they could I moved all the units which had remaining movement points to Trondheim. In 1960 all the artys were moved into the city. I rushed a palace (which would take 800 turns) my SGL in one turn so as to avoid any flip chances.

The plan was very successful. I actually managed to ward off the viking units for two turns, 1960 and 1961.

And guess what ?

After all the nuisance and hard work the elections were not called up by the CPU. WTF !!!

So in the interturn of 1961 I was literally steamrolled by the overwhelming viking forces: over 100 cavalry, over 300 tanks, 800 mechs etc ...

I haven't continued the game. But I believe I should've won. It's like when you take over the GL, the techs pour in the next turn. Well it should be the same with the UNs. The next turn of capturing it, elections should be held. I wonder If I should've counted every 11 turns from 1820 onwards and timed it with its capture, so just the turn after I capture it, elections are held for the post of chairman.

I have no idea what's gone wrong. Anyways, I don't have a standing army now and my income has jumped 300 gpt with all the lost units. Tragedy.

Oh well, it was my first go at Sid anyway. And it was a heavily tainted builder's game at that, more like softcore warmonger really. I should've turned out completely warmonger . I'll be back !

N.B.: So If the UNs follow an 11-turn cycle I have to resort to maths:

It was built in 1820. The first elections should've been held then. So the dates it will hold elections would be:

1842
1864
1886
1908
1930
1951
and 1962

Damn it. Had I waited two turns more I would've won the game by a diplo victory.

Huh ? How crazy is that ! I'll test this tonight and If I'm right I'm not going to call this sid game a loss, NO WAY, how the hell was I suppose to know that 11-cycle thing that rules the UNs !! I thought the cycle restarted once you captured it, on the consecutive turn. Man, I'm enraged. You can tell I always build the UNs and never need to resort to stealing it from some poor AI civ.

Trondheim must be taken over, If my maths are right, on 1960-1961. I hold to it for two turns and the elections should crop up sometime in 1962 unless I've done some miscalculation.

22-07-05 update -and last-

This time I just waited two turns to atack. Instead of attacking in 1959 like I did the day before yesterday, I just skipped two turns and attacked Trondheim in 1961 carrying out a RoP rape. I signed MA with everyone against good old Ragnar. I wouldn't consider it reloading because my troops were already in position way before 1959 and I had no idea that the 11-year cycle takes place since the UNs is built (1820 in this case) and not since its owned/captured like I thought. You just won't find that info in the civilopaedia or anywhere else, it's experience.

The following turn in 1962 the elections to the UNs were held.

The two candidates were myself and Ragnar the Viking (because he had managed to hit the 25% world population limit ironically with two of the cities he captured me on his continent which had hospitals and grew well over size 20: New The Hague).

The results were staggering: I got the five votes from all the AIs and my own vote. Ragnar voted for himself. So it was 6 Vs 1. I was elected chairman and won the game. I would've expected that having been at war wit the Arabs and Celts they would've abstained but it just wasn't the case. Except for that last RoP rape my rep was flawless all game through and I only razed three cities (autorazed really). Queen Isabella had been avenged at long last !

The number crunching: 61 hours and 25 minutes. William the Magnificent. 5400 lousy points. In any deity game I always score a minimum of 7000 points (but that's pangaea of course). 18 pages to tell this Sid story and 20 saves which show the development of the whole game from 4000 B.C. through to victory in 1962 A.D. A picture (save) is worth a thousand words. Only 7 civilizations survived the onslaught out of the 16 which started this game.

The other AIs don't take into account the RoP rape and you don't get a rep hit If you sign a MA against someone. So it wouldn't affect their vote at all. But once the war is over you do get that rep hit from them as explained in Bamspeedy's AI Attitude. But who cares ? I had won already.

This I must highlight is not a very good example of the Builder Strategy because there was a fair deal of warmongering going on. Also the great elevator is not neccessary at Deity whereas in this Sid game it was almost the only way out. But still it may act as a tainted example of a builder strategy at Sid.

Voluntas Omnia Vincit

Drakan


come to think of it I should start a new game tonight with the Mayans or Byzantines. This game is sure more addictive than crack !


--- THE END ---



Sid conclusions


After playing a finished Sid game (huge archipiélago, 80% water, 15 random civs) over the weekend I drew the conclusion that there are basically three different types of AI civs regardless of their traits and depending solely on their geographical location:

1. AI which started on very small islands and only managed to build 5 or less cities. They were stuck in the Ancient Ages all game through. They were extremely backwards technologically with huge AAs armies and massive upkeeps which hampered any further development or research.

2. AI which started on an intermediate island big enough to harbour 6-15 cities. They managed to research and trade and somehow plod ahead. They were kind of intermediate.

3. AIs which started in huge islands by themselves or in a huge island with other AI civs but they had a more powerful early UU (such as GS or Berserk) and quickly took over their home continent wiping out the remaining civs on it. They became the games powerhouses and the runaway Sid AIs which were way ahead of everyone else with more than 15 cities.

So my point is that the geographical starting location of the AIs in Sid completely determined how well they fared regardless of their civ traits.

And when two or three of them started on the same island, the one with the most powerful and early UU takes over the whole continent.

In deity the geographical location is important for an AI civ to thrive but it doesn't determine it as much. But in Sid in an archipiélago map the AIs just seem to fall in one of the three categories aforementioned.

.- Another conclusion is that the AIs don't research Sanitation. (?)

.- Also, when in the configuration screen I set the AI agressiveness to be at the maximum , this probably made the smaller civs with less than 5-6 cities to build military units non stop due to their fast sid build rate and remain stuck in the Ancient ages throughout the rest of the game due to the high upkeep costs which hampered any futher research. This became very useful for me when invading them with more modern units (cavalry and rifleman). So in truth, I had turned around their own Sid strength to play up against them !

.- At Deity the Builder Strategy works fine (I've used it more than 15 times and have never had a problem winning with it using different civs in huge pangaea with 15 random AI civs).

The problem is that in Sid the building rate for the AI is increased from 40 to 60% over the human. This means that you are almost forced to play on an archipiélago map to delay contacts amongst the AIs and this way hinder their fast tech pace buying you time to develop and play catch up from behind. But this goes against the very best interests of this Builder Strategy which requires all the civs to be very advanced and well developed so you can funnel all the gold out of them to propel your own research of monopoly techs and surge ahead.

At Sid the AIs seem to be always cash-strapped because they build far too many military units and the upkeep costs just pulls them down from having any spare cash at all. Perhaps If I had selected the AIs to be the least aggressive in the configuration screen they wouldn't have built as many units and would have allocated more cash to research and to building improvements which would've speeded up tremendously the game techwise and helped the builder strategy to shine.

Even the most advanced AIs are under Fascism or commie so they are not making much money. The Vikings were only researching at 30% ! The most gpt I made in a turn in this Sid game from them was only a meagre 300 gpt which is just peanuts for this strat to work out properly.

At Deity I was raking in from the AIs anywhere between 1.000-2.000 gpt plus all the lump gold they had, which in some cases was well over 40.000 gold (Greeks in my Sumerian game).

So all in all I must conclude that my builder strategy just won't work at Sid due to the fast building rate which almost forces you to play archipiélago maps which happen to be the most unsuitable for my builder strategy. On pangaea you get the 8 luxuries well before Navigation, at the beginning of the Middle Ages. At Sid you have to wait for Navigation in an archipiélago map to trade for them.

Although I have seen some german players (Kronic ?) who manage to win Sid peacefully with no military units at all (!) playing as builders (so he doesn't even resort to the GL trick as I did which would trigger necessarily a war unless it flips back to you at the right moment, wow !).

But then again I would love for someone to prove me wrong and play with my builder strategy on Sid and win !

-- End conclusion: I should've waited longer to capture the GL at The Hague. I should've waited and made sure that Entremont (Celts) were building a factory with the help of my embassy. I've I'd learned Industrialisation things would've certainly been different I guess. I could've had a shot at ToE and Hoover's. Perhaps aiming for a prebuild of the UNs instead of having to capture it from the Vikings at Trondheim in 1961 which would've brought about a more "pure" builder game

[vmxa1]

I am not sure that the aggression setting will do anything to the them in terms of unit building. I played dozens of Sid games with normal aggression and they still build so many units they go broke.

The reason is as you said the cost factor lets them build new items very fast and then they just build more units. Since they can build units in about 2 turns, it does not take long to get to the limit of support.

[Drakan]

O.k. I thought It was cause of the maximum aggression level. Thanks Vmxa1.

[jimmyh]

I had a quick go at the Deity plan during my lunch.

It didn't go to badly...i got surrounded by cities very quickly...manged to get my self 5-6 cities...but my problem was my techs were starting off at 50 turns...so Alphabet took a long time...and then i paid 338g and 12gpt to buy writing..never even got to lit.

I set my science to the quickest it could go, while getting the most gpt as i could.

I didn't even have masonry to prebuild the GL with a palace

Oh well i'll have to try again.

[Drakan]

Hi Jimmyh. You don't need to prebuild the GL at all at Deity with a palace or whatever. Even the GL in the game I posted sid level with William the Dutch was built without any class of prebuild (perhaps a few turns with a temple can't remember really). In fact you don't even need to start off with alphabet either to build it first.

Do not trade Literature (or Writing) before you are sure you'll complete the GL even under extortion. Build embassies and sign RoP to mitigate wars out of extortion.

The trick is to mine all useful tiles in the city that's building it and bringing it to size 12 asap by joining workers if neccesary. Look at my saves. I have saves for both Deity and Sid that'll show you the wonder city the turn before the GL is completed. You'll see that the ciy is size 12 and all tiles are carefully MM so as to maximize the shield output which on average will be somewhere between 17-21 spt enabling you to finish the GL in 400/21= 19 turns or less without a prebuild. It is paramount to get your wonder city to size 10 at least a few turns before you actually start building the GL.

In any case, once you switch production to building it, your city should definitely be size 12 and all citizens working tiles, no entertainers whatsover. You put the research slider to zero and increase the luxury slab to 30-50% so as to make sure all the 12 citizens are content/happy and are all working on the 12 tiles which highest spt value. If the city happens to starve you join a worker each turn but I doubt it will be necessary.

Once you finish the GL you lower the luxury slider to zero If needed be again. You ought to have hooked/traded all the luxuries you can.

It takes some practice to get it right. But once you are able to build the GL confidently at Deity everything will become easier following this Builder strategy, trust me.

With the Builder strategy you will be able to exercise a fair amount of power in a game with as little as 10-12 cities. You don't need more really to win builder-style at Deity.

[jimmyh]

Well the problem was that they got writing way before i could get any where near it

I built roads and then started to mine my capital...and building roads to my other cities. Actual growth and production were quite good...it was just tech research speed was a problem.

Even at the beginning i had to increase luxuries although it didn't effect the tech research speed.

[Drakan]

Hmm. The AI will typically deride the tech of Literature for last in the AAs coupled with Republic, so even If they learn Writing before you, trade for it (pay gpt, lump sum whatever it takes) and set your research slider to the maximum so you make sure you'll be the first to get to Literature.

Just focus in the beeline Writing---Literature researching at max speed.

Even if you only have one turn advantage over them when they start building the GL themselves that'll be 21 shields in your advantage with a size 12 city. More than enough to win them.

The wonder cascades are usually over by the time they learn Literature ironically because of their increased build rate over their human conterpart at Deity.

If they get to Writing before you you, perhaps you have to practice more your trading skills.

EDIT: from turn one of the game you should increase the luxury slider to 30-40% so as to prevent unhapiness when the city grows. As your workers build roads and mines, you'll hook up luxuries or trade for them thus enabling you to lower the luxury slide.

In any case, the first tech you research (Writing I suppose) will take 50 turns in C3C If you have the research slider at 10% or at 100%. After 10-20 turns as you build up infrastructure with your workers, and commerce (i.e. gold) starts to pour in the time to research the tech decreases significantly. Now you are able to allocate more cash to research techs moving on up tech slider.

My advice is to fiddle around with your luxury slide and see how it affetcs your citizens. Below Emperor you hardly need to move it, because by default you get two content citizens per city, whilst from Emperor onwards you only get one content citizen per city and it takes a whole lot more of MMg.

[jimmyh]

I had nothing to trade with...the only techs i researched my self were alphabet...I bought writing for 338g and 12gtp which i didn't like doing :s. And any one had the techs i started with...maybe i'll try again and choose some one who starts with alphabet.

Oh i was playing as the Sumerians