AU102: All we're sayin' is give peace a chance

[Arrian]

Yeah, that was an extremely painful 2 turns. Cleopatra is now on my everliving****list. Every Egyptian civ I encounter from now on will pay the price.

France was awesome. The deal, IIRC, was actually closer to 300 gpt than 200. I think it was in the 280s. I almost couldn't believe it. I was selling them other stuff at the time, too! I distinctly remember another trade for over 1000 gold up front and a bunch of gpt. Joany was one wealthy wench.

This raises two questions:

1) If France could do that with their so-so terrain (and good traits), why can't the other AIs do it?

2) If France had that type of economic power, why were they 3 or more techs behind me throughout the Industrial Age?

-Arrian

p.s. I was on the edge of my seat until I built Hoover (after which I just wanted to get to Fission and be done), and because of that, I failed to pay any sort of attention to saving the game periodically or taking screenshots.

I do have the autosaves from the end, which should include the 1560 save. I think I'll post attach that one when I get home tonight... perhaps if people (Aeson, hint, hint) might take a good look at the situation and tell me if there was any other way I could have prevented attack.

[Killerdaffy]

Ok, at least it's good to know that I was not the only one being hit out of the blue. Same modus operandi, different timing by Cleo. Violated RoP while being polite in early medieval and conquered two or three cities immediately. The only reason why I survived was that Egypt didn't have enough fast units on my part of the continent to follow through before they were hit by my French and Iroquois allies.

Egypt got wiped out eventually, along with the Germans. France mas mediocre but had more money than the Iros. India was a tech *killer*, two to three techs ahead of everybody for a while in late industrial. Germany died quickly once Mao had the bigger base.

[Aeson]

Arrian -

Ouch! France certainly was the best AI in my game as well (I think that's the winner trait/build combo), they even kept me hard pressed for techs until they eventually declared war on me.. taking my silk city. Egypt was my buffer through the whole game so far, they had a city built on the silks (between my city and the rest of my empire) as well. I was just about to gift mine to them when France attacked. They had a ROP with Egypt, I had a MPP though, so they never got through after the first turn. I had so much cash that the rest of the world was at war with France very quickly, which ruined their economy over the next 20 turns, and I took a very large tech lead with ToE.

If I had to guess, I would think Egypt attacked because of the combination of a ROP (seeing your core cities as vulnerable) and your silk city. The AI seems to be more agressive when it has a shot of taking out luxury/resource cities or your capitol. The few ROP violations I can remember have been where the AI attacked my capitol. I kept a 3 deep line of scouts at the choakpoint, and never signed ROP's with anyone. My silk city was too exposed though.

[Arrian]

If I had stacked rows of explorers on the border, I probably could have held them off while losing only a couple of cities. All I needed was 4 turns. But I had exactly 1 unit - an old scout. My workers were all shift+A automated and were finishing up my mountains (unroaded as yet) so I was only able to muster 2 of them.

Now, if I was next to a large, rich, advanced and wonderous civ which had no defenses, I would have attacked too (actually, one has to wonder why they waited so long). But it still sucked.

Re: France's power. I think this is a combination of the civ traits and build preferences. I think Egypt has a pretty good combo as well. China and India appear to need work. I throw out the Iroquois from my game b/c of the early worker purchase. Germany sucks, but we knew that.

-Arrian

[Robber Baron]

Arrian -- amazing game, incredible story.
What city improvements did you build when? And how did you keep the AI civs at bay, before the discovery of nationalism/mpps?
Should we name the scenario "Give appeasement a chance"?

[Arrian]

Robber Baron,

I made it a priority to claim all of the luxuries I could get to (silks, spices, incense, gems) and I succeeded. I roaded them quickly and also built a road to Egypt (in order to do so, I signed a RoP agreement... which I just renewed as a matter of course for the rest of the game. DOH!). Trading with the AI makes them happy. So I traded. Occasionally, I gifted. I tended to accept whatever the AI offered me for luxuries or resouces (sold saltpeter to Iroquois, iron to Egypt). I would tweak the tech deals, but never to the point of bankrupting the AI. By the end, they all loved me... even Cleo*****. Bismarck was merely "polite" but I don't think he's allowed to be "gracious."

I built a lot of cities in the tundra wastes to claim luxuries. Most of these were coastal, so I bought them harbors. Eventually, every one of them was actually producing quite a bit of uncorrupted trade, since I purchased courthouses and later police stations. With libraries and universities, they were quite worthwhile.

My core cities were Washington, New York (north, on the river), Boston (east, on the coast) and Philly (west, on the river w/lots of hils).

Washington built, IIRC:

scout
scout
worker
settler
settler
temple
settler
*added two Iroquois workers*
Great Library
library
settler
marketplace
Sistine Chapel
cathedral
university
Adam Smith's
bank
Newton's
colosseum
factory
hospital

New York:

settler
temple
settler
library
Hanging Gardens
marketplace
courthouse
Bach
cathedral
university
bank
colosseum
factory
Hoover
hospital
police station
UN

Boston:

Temple
Colossus
library
marketplace
harbor
aqueduct
granary
courthouse
cathedral
university
bank
colosseum
factory
hospital

Philly:

granary
settler
temple
settler
settler
courthouse
library
marketplace
cathedral
university
bank
Wall Street
colosseum
factory
ToE
hospital
police station

I think that's pretty close. The outlying cities often built a worker, then started on temples. The cities that were really far out (hopeless until democracy at least) provided the empire with workers, paricularly when it came time to build the railroads.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Well, I just finished my game... pretty uneventful diplomatic win. I reloaded after and tried to get a 20k culture victory, but the AI's launched far too quickly. I still needed 80 more turns (1788AD).

On a side note, this is by far the most Explorers I've ever built... 281 altogether.

[alexman]

...always trust Aeson to come up with the most extreme tactics imaginable...

[Arrian]

Aeson,

#1 - yeah, that's what I should have done. The explorer wall.

#2 - wow, china got wasted in your game, huh?

#3 - was 1650 the first UN vote opportunity you had? If so, wow, I was 70 yrs. faster even though I screwed up the UN prebuild (as a matter of fact, had I timed the prebuild properly, I would have built the 3-4 turns faster... which means I would have survived the Egyptian attack w/o reloading).

-Arrian

[Robber Baron]

Arrian --
Thanks for the knowledge. I'll be studying this one!

[Aeson]

Yah, India and Germany were both at war with China for most of the Industrial era. As for the tech rate, it was pretty slow the whole game. I was bleeding the AI's dry (except for Egypt), and so almost every tech I researched myself, then sold it to everyone else. I didn't pre-build the UN at all, or build hospitals until I had Ecology later, so that was probably the difference. No need to prebuild when I had a 4-5 tech lead at the time, and since I was keeping the tech lead rather easily, I just didn't want to deal with any added pollution by letting my cities grow.

[Arrian]

Aeson,

I bet the hospitals were the difference. I was milking the AI economies dry as well and was doing all the research. But I researched sanitation right after I got Scientific Method, but before ToE was done. I built the hospitals right away. The pollution wasn't that bad. Industrious workers in democracy w/replaceable parts take care of it right quick.

No need to prebuild when I had a 4-5 tech lead at the time

That's what I thought. I started my UN prebuild when I began researching fission. In retrospect, had I not been so damn complacent, I could have built it around 1540AD.

-Arrian

[alexman]

I'm playing both versions at the same time, following roughly the same strategy for both. I'm at about 570 A.D. right now.

The AI seems to have expanded similarly in both cases. But the their relative strengths as well as their power compared to mine, are a bit different. When I'm done, I'll look into my saves to see what they are building in each case.

It's probably because the AI civs in the "killer" version are a bit stronger than the standard version, but one thing that is very different is their aggression. The standard AI have never even once asked for tribute. The killer AI asked for tribute about five times so far. Then, out of the blue, India landed a galley with two warriors next to New York. I immediately gifted them 50gpt, and already had lots of other deals with them to keep them happy and to give me furs (which I didn't need anyway). It didn't matter. Gahndi sneak attacked anyway. He was the most powerful of the AI's at the time (which was not the case in the standard AI version). Now the entire world is allied against him, so from now on the comparison between the two games will no longer be valid. B*st*rd! He spoiled my experiment!

[Arrian]

Funny, I received only one demand for tribute. I rejected it by mistake, but was not attacked. I was playing the "killer" version. I wonder if it had anything to do with my histograph ranking (#1 from start to finish).

Funny that India was strong in yours...

I was looking over the map last night, and there are a couple of things I noticed:

1. we were EXTREMELY fortunate with luxuries and strategic resources. We had tons of stuff to trade, and hardly needed imports. That more than made up for all that tundra.

2. India was kinda screwed w/regard to luxuries, as was Egypt (I think that's the only reason Egypt wasn't as rich as France. They must have had to pay for a lot of imports).

-Arrian

[alexman]

Originally posted by Arrian
I wonder if it had anything to do with my histograph ranking (#1 from start to finish).

Funny that India was strong in yours...

I'm sure it did. Specifically, the power ranking (not score or culture). India was a bit higher than me in power (not in score), but they were less advanced in tech, and certainly not as rich as France. The main reason they did better in the killer version was the fact that they, not the Iroquois, built the Lighthouse.

we were EXTREMELY fortunate with luxuries and strategic resources.

I guess I made it too easy... ...I didn't want Aeson to be the only one to win this game...

You probably noticed also that I put Germany far away from us, and next to China for a offense-defense matchup, and the friendly, yet expansionist Iroquois next to us, who were supposed to compete for the luxuries at the choke point.