Apolyton University

[nbarclay]

I just had a radical thought for the Ultimate Power game. Instead of playing on a conventional map, play on a large map but with a few civs split off by ocean. Then rig things so the only ship capable of passing over ocean tiles is an "exploration ship" that can neither fight nor carry units. That way, the civs seeking Ultimate Power would have to compete with rivals that it is theoretically impossible for them to beat into submission or steal wonders from. (And to make it more like a conventional game, I'd make sure both land masses have access to all eight luxuries.) Does that sound practical from an editor perspective? And, more importantly, does it sound like it would add interest to the game?

Nathan

[Theseus]

Originally posted by nbarclay


When a nation conquers the world, the only power it demonstrates is a power to destroy. Ultimate Power involves not just the power to destroy, but the power to create as well. A nation with Ultimate Power must be capable of winning any war it chooses (or is compelled) to fight quickly and decisively, but that power need not be exercised beyond securing whatever lands the civilization actually has a use for. A nation with Ultimate Power must also be able to create many great wonders, to lead the world decisively in science, and to build a culture that is the envy of the world. Anything less than that is not true Ultimate Power because the nation does not have the power to succeed militarily without compromising the rest of its potential for greatness.

Nathan

That was sort of poetic.

To give credit where credit's due, I sort of think of it as Arrian's dream game when he was still a builder, but adjusted for the necessary warfare of Civ3.

The perfect empire.

[Arrian]

Bingo.

UP was born of a "builder" mindset... just a really greedy one. MY WONDERS! MY TECH! Mine, I tell you, MINE!!! The damn AI just wouldn't let me build all the stuff I wanted, so I was forced to beat them into submission. It's their fault really.

In my experience, the best UP games have taken place on continents maps, with 5-6 civs on one continent (my continent, heh) and 2-3 elsewhere.

Nathan's idea is interesting, but I'm not so sure about totally removing intercontinental war. Delaying it, on the other hand...

As much as I like Japan and China, if the difficulty level is Emperor and there are to be many neighbors on the continent, I think I'd go with Egypt. They are just so strong, and WC's can be built in massive numbers so quickly. With enough AI's to fight, I can sacrifice the militaristic promotion bonus.

-Arrian

[jshelr]

Yup. Arrian's right on with respect to civ selection on higher levels.

Two-move archers /with good upgrade. Industrious workers. Short anarchy. I even like the early GA when I'm fighting for survival.

My wife wonders why I like to play as Cleo. But you can't have everything.

[nbarclay]

Do we really want to try for Ultimate Power on Emperor? I can think of a way to set up a map where it would probably be possible, but the margin for unexpected difficulties would be awfully slim even with things loaded heavily in our favor. I'd been thinking in terms of reccommending playing at the lower end of our difficulty level spectrum (Monarch for most of the regulars).

An Emperor-level UP set-up might look something like three cows along a river on the capital site and the same at a couple other nearby sites (maybe with things rigged so the capital can use more than three cattle initially and then hand some off to a neighboring city), with plenty of shielded grasslands at all three prime core cities. Add to that plenty of other good-quality land to expand into, a couple luxuries within easy reach early in the REXing process, and relatively passive neighbors (India for one) to minimize the risk of being drawn into a war before one is wanted.

By the way, I agree that Egypt can make a very potent Ultimate Power civ. The one catch to the early GA is that the better the map is in terms of providing grasslands with shields, the more of the GA production bonus is wasted. Similarly, the gold bonus along rivers is wasted when three gold in a GA drops back to two. On the other hand, being able to crank out war chariots as if every grassland/plains tile in every city were a grassland with shield can be devastating, and hills could provide at least some terrain able to go past two shields even in an early GA.

Here's another thought for a map set-up: 12 civs on a large map in a 6/3/3 set-up, with us among the six, one threesome accessible by sea and another only by ocean. Then change frigates, ironclads, and galleons so they have the same risk of sinking in ocean as caravels, so only transports, destroyers, and higher can travel across the ocean safely, and move the "Enables Trade over Ocean Tiles" flag accordingly. (All luxuries would be available on both sides of the ocean.) That way, invasion of those last three civs would be difficult but not impossible.

Nathan

[Arrian]

Nathan,

Hmm... I have no objection to using Monarch as the difficulty level. I've only played on Emperor a few times.

I do know that UP is possible on Emperor based on a game I just finished. Like you said, multiple cows on river (5 in this case) at the start spot helps. The only difference between that and my Monarch level UP games was my tech lead. I didn't pull away as fast, but eventually got to nearly a full era. The Wonders & Military might elements were there.

I like your 6/3/3 setup idea. I like it a lot. When I attain UP on my standard/continents settings, I wish there was another continent with viable civs on it for me to deal with. It's like I've finally completed my hot-rod civ, and have no one to race against. "And Alexander wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer."

We may need to disable the cultural win, though.

-Arrian

p.s. "UP" includes, in my mind, efficiency. Good Palace/FP setup, with courthouses and police stations everywhere. That's why some of my UP games have felt a tad anti-climactic. I finally get factories, police stations, hospitals, mass transits, recycling centers and research labs in my cities, and game over.

[korn469]

i hope you don't mind a couple of suggestions from me

here is what i would love to see in your ultimate power game

*use a standard size map with two landmasses, with the larger landmass being about twice the size of the smaller one

*on the larger landmass have 14 civs including the players civ, and give the player the ultimate power start

*on the smaller landmass have two civs which will have lots of room to grow and build nice empires, my suggestions for these two civs would two of the following five civs: India (Agr 1), France (Agr 1), Iroquois (Agr 2), Greece (Agr 3), Egypt (Agr 3)...with India and France, or India and Greece being my two top choices

*disable all naval transports from the game (galley, caravel, galleon, transport)

*leave on all victory conditions

what i think the effects of this would be is that your civ really would have to prove that they can achieve Ultimate Power, because they would have a number of military rivals on their own continant, and then they would have cultural (and possibly scientific) rivals on the other continant

one other suggestion would be that you tweak the AI values of the two isolated civs for maximum builder

how does that sound?

[nbarclay]

I've come close to Ultimate Power on Emperor a few times, but with one reservation: in order to expand the way I feel like I need to, I can't compete in the early wonder races the way I'd like to. (The one exception was my very first Emperor-level game that I played past the ancient era, a 16-civ huge-map game where my Egyptians decimated Russia and Rome in the Golden Age Wars. But that was when retreat was automatic unless the enemy just had one hit point left.) So I always feel like there's that little somethng missing. That's why I'm thinking in terms of such a heavily advantaged start if we play Emperor - rig things so the capital can compete for early wonders and there's still another good "settler pump" city or two for growth.

Nathan

[Arrian]

Ah, Nathan, now I understand. You and I have slightly different concepts of UP. I do not consider building early wonders to be essential, or even desirable. I will typically only invest in the Colossus, GL and HG. I hope to capture the Pyramids. The Oracle is a nice surprise if I can capture it. The GW is garbage, and the G.Lighthouse may or may not be useful, but I don't really care about it.

In the Emperor UP game I referenced, I captured the Oracle, Pyramids and Sun Tzu. Now, clearly I would rather build (or rush) the wonders myself, but capturing is good enough, so long as I get lots of use out of them. I captured the Pyramids & Sun Tzu later than I had intended, but I still did get lots of use from them. The Oracle was even useful for once. I never did get the Colossus in that game, which was a minor annoyance, but something I considered to be part of the price of Emperor.

The first wonder I actually built was the HG, followed 2 turns later by the GL. This was during my GA. After the (expected) loss of Sun Tzu (better that than either of the Sistine/Leo's), it was all me. My version of UP does not require that you dominate wire to wire. It requires a very quick catchup (ancient era) and domination from the middle ages on. Accordingly, my Egyptian Emperor game is borderline.

-Arrian

[nbarclay]

I wasn't necessarily thinking in terms of dominating the early game, but just that it would be nice to be able to compete in the early wonder races without seriously compromising growth. I'm not after every ancient wonder, but I'd like to have my share of them.

Actually, a civ that could build the Pyramids and still win early wars probably would just about have to be in a position where it could dominate end to end. But the decision to devote twenty war chariots' (less wastage) worth of production to building a wonder would be its own statement of the civilization's greatness. It has so much power that it can succeed even with its most productive city tied behind its back during a critical phase of the game.

Also coloring my thinking is the fact that in my 16-civ huge-map Egyptian game, I did get the Pyramids on my way to thorougly trouncing Rome and Russia. (That started my GA very shortly before I'd planned to start fighting.) Stuff like that tends to color one's view of what kind of power is truly ultimate.

I think I came up with a trick, though, that (on the right map) could let a civ go in the wonder business without creating as much of an imbalance as I'd originally envisioned. If a four-cow capital was in a position to hand off its cattle to neighboring cities on either side, and still had plenty of grasslands with shields to work with for its own purposes, that would allow continued use of the cattle for pumping out settlers while letting the capital (which can get the most out of the luxury slider of any city) shift its attention to the wonder race. Add to that a nearby coastal city with a fair amount of shielded grassland and the civ has a good shot at the Colossus as well.

Nathan

[nbarclay]

Originally posted by korn469
*on the larger landmass have 14 civs including the players civ, and give the player the ultimate power start

That sounds more like the "overcrowding" game I proposed earlier (and which we'll probably dredge up sometime). I'd really like for the "Ultimate Power" game to give players more choice than that regarding how warlike they want to be in the early stages, since Ultimate Power is about more than just warfare.

Nathan

[ducki]

Originally posted by nbarclay
Does standard map, 60% water, pangea sound good? Or would continents be better? And since we're after Ultimate Power, how about sedentary barbarians so we can expand without much fear?
Nathan

Does sedentary barbs give the player an unfair advantage over the AI? Especially when playing an industrious civ on anything but Deity?

The reason I ask is, I have never seen an AI settler without an escort, and even on Roaming barbs, I regularly send settlers out "unprotected".

I generally, when trying to hurry my expansion, will place a single defender between 2 or 3 towns, and with my industrious road network, that's plenty of defenders.

This saves me quite a bit of precious early production for "more immediate" needs and I rarely lose a city to barbs.

The AI, in my experience, however, always builds a defender/escort. I often wait until my new town has built a temple and maybe it's own barracks before building defenders.

If I used more barbs than Roaming, though, or wound up with an early game border, especially with aggressive AIs, I'd put defenders everywhere, but for now, on non-border towns 1 or two defenders on a road - one turn away - suffices.

Just curious, can't wait to start playing these, once I'm up to Monarch level.

[nbarclay]

In an Ultimate Power game, the whole idea is to give the player enough advantages that he can win a lot more thoroughly than usual if he plays well. Actually, Olaf recently posted what's turning out to be a great Emperor-level Ultimate Power game on the General board. (At least I'm getting something that looks a lot like Ultimate Power out of it - four ancient wonders built myself, and a six-tech lead about halfway through the medieval era.) The thread is (and I hope this works)

http://apolyton.net/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=64393

[ducki]

Ah, I get it.
I must have missed part of the GoUP set-up.
Thanks for the link!

[nbarclay]

By the way, the more recent AU games have been set up so you can play on whatever level you want to. So you're welcome to join us, whatever level you play at.

Nathan