Ultimate Power: a more pragmatic approach

I took the opportunity during my AU207 game (which I played on Monarch) to re-read some ‘old’ threads, compare some strategies and try to fit them to my ongoing game.

Arrian’s ‘Ultimate Power’ thread was of course on top of my list. As my game unfolded, I was tempted several times to give-in to the ‘Dark Side’ and try his strategies. After all, I had the money, I had the techs, I had two weak neighbours (the Germans and the Zulu).
Finally, I did nothing of the sort (Ok, I annihilated the Zulus later on, but only because they attacked me first).
Why? Well, because I felt I could achieve the same goals of UP with a different strategy.

Then I re-re-read Arrian’s thread and compared what my French had achieved vs. Arrian’s prerequisites for a successful UP, and I started to think about a different approach to UP.

Note: just to put things in perspective, this ‘questioning’ is not from master-to-master, but more from master-to-apprentice (disciple?). I would never dream to compare my skills and understanding of the game with Arrian’s. According to Theseus, I can’t even improve terrain correctly yet (and he is perfectly right!). This shows how much I have still to learn. Well, in the meantime, I believe I have improved my ‘digging skills’.

But let’s go back to Arrian’s UP:

QUOTE
For a while now, I have been seeking what I've termed the "Game of Ultimate Power." I have been seeking it on Monarch level (and will continue to seek it elsewhere), Standard Maps, Continents, 8 civs. I began this thread to discuss the game which I decided finally fit my definition of "Ultimate Power."

First, allow me to explain what I mean by UP:

- A large, productive empire
- Huge leads in tech, money, military force
- Just about all the Wonders of the World, with the ones I deem "key" built or rushed myself (not captured)
- The capability to do whatever I wish wherever I wish

I wish to have these things achieved by the end of the middle ages.

I discovered that CivIII, once you get up to Monarch, does not really allow one to dominate the game via "builder" methods. If you try, you will most likely get beaten to various wonders or get attacked because your military is neglected.
Oh, what a difference. I cannot overstate the awesome power of early war - in particular, early war that generates Great Leaders. This is required for Ultimate Power above Regent level (probably above warlord, for that matter).
UNQUOTE

Arrian went later into more details:

QUOTE
"To create, you must destroy. Smash a glass and cry, Too Much Joy..."[/Too Much Joy, a fun band]

Anyway, it goes like this. Going to war, particularly early in the game, provides me with the following:

1) More territory/cities.
2) More resources/luxuries
3) Potential for Great Leaders
4) Tech/gold via peace treaties
5) A better chance of winning the tech & wonder races later in the game, since I'm hurting the AI now.

1 & 2 are obvious. You cannot acquire #1 via trade. You can acquire #2 via trade, but it will cost you, and help the AI (note, there is a central theme here: the AI is the ENEMY).

#3 is heavily dependant on luck. However, the more fighting you do, the more likely you are to get leaders. Leaders have enormous power, particularly early in the game.

#4 is pretty straightforward. You can trade for tech, or sell tech for gold, but again, that costs you and helps the AI. The AI is the enemy. What you give them, give them reluctantly.

#5 is hard to explain/quantify to someone who has never used his military to break the AI. I often destroy several of the most powerful AIs on the map in the ancient & medieval ages. That really hurts the AI's ability to research & trade techs, allowing me to blast off to a huge tech lead. Plus, I've removed threats to my empire's security. A dead AI civ cannot attack you.

Back to the leaders for a moment. Let's just take my current game as an example. Rome, Monarch, standard map, continents. I started on a continent with the Russians as my only neighbor. It's pretty big for a 2-civ continent, and I got off to a pretty good start (I think I got a settler from a hut) so I played it out. Very early on, I whacked a Russian settler team with my one and only elite archer. Guess what? Leader. I held on to him for a long time. I built up my forces and then took Moscow. I used my leader to rush the FP.

The game was effectively over right then and there. I now had well-placed Palace & FP, and pretty much controlled my continent (it took me some time to actually destroy Russia, because I was fishing for more leaders, to no avail).

So what did that early warfare get me? It doubled my territory, gave me a perfectly positioned FP, gained me some tech, and gave me monopolies on the luxuries on my continent (useful as hell when trading). As a result, I'm winning handily.

Now let's look at a Huge Map game for comparison. AU207, for instance. I fought 1 ancient war (Babylon - swordsmen), 5 medieval wars (Germany, Mongols, America, Japan, Vikings), and one industrial war (Arabs). I got 10 leaders, I quintupled my territory at least, and I got my Palace & FP perfectly positioned to cover the majority of a vast continent. In short, I became the world's Superpower. I did trade with the AI, sure. I sold them stuff, sucking their income into my coffers. When one got uppity, I smacked them down & took their luxuries (Arabs) almost without effort (militarily speaking... getting my troops there was actually a bit of a pain).

I think you will find my empire very well developed, with all the appropriate wonders & city improvements. My warmongering led DIRECTLY to my ability to build such a powerful, wealthy & wonderous empire.
UNQUOTE

Arrian’s approach of his UP clearly focuses on early (and near constant) warfare (his ‘Dark Side’) to achieve his strategic goals. Military conquest assures land, resources and luxuries, GLeaders assure Wonders. In fact, warmongering is the ONLY way to achieve UP, since “builder” methods don’t work very well, if not at all (Arrian dixit).

Now, what would ‘Pragmatic Ultimate Power’ be? My definition would be: ‘PUP uses the most appropriate methods for achieving specific strategic goals, which obviously come from the overall goal: to win the game.

These strategic goals are:
- A productive empire
- A lead in techs
- A maximum of gold
- A maximum of happiness

All these goals are of course inter-related: a happy empire is more productive and produces therefore more gold. More gold and/or a tech lead will buy luxuries which increases happiness etc. etc.

In other words, you achieve PUP not only in winning the game, but in winning it in such a way that your civ is simply the ‘best’ in all above aspects, and by far. For instance, a productive empire is one in which most of your cities are on ‘Wealth’ by the end of the Industrial Ages (if played on v1.29, no Commercial Docks etc. )because every sensible city improvement has been built, and maximum happiness is achieved when almost all your cities are on WLTxD.

But these are NOT strategic goals for a PUP win:
- A large empire
- A strong military
- An early ‘domination’
- A maximum of Wonders

A large empire:
Your empire needs only two things: a geographical unity (no scattered cities) and a critical size (number of cities). This critical size, or mass, allows you to diversify the building in your cities (units, cultural, economical, happiness buildings, Wonders etc.). It was mostly the lack of geographical unity that let me to remove the Babylonians from ‘my’ piece of land.
Of course, more land means more chances of getting resources and luxuries, but those can be bought/traded/swapped. In my AU207 game (also played at Monarch level, as Arrian), the French had only spices (in the NW) and later on no aluminium, but the latter was exchanged for a second-handed tech. As for the luxuries, just look at the screenshot posted below.
Therefore, a war of conquest might be necessary to achieve geographical unity and a viable size, but a war of outright conquest of your whole continent is not.

A strong military:
Once your empire is running, you need military units for garrison duty during Despotism (happiness) and against barbarians. Afterwards, a ‘central reserve’ of Horsemen/Knights/Cavalry/Tanks etc should be sufficient. The saved shields go into improvements (strategic goal 1), the saved gold/turn is for goals 2, 3 and 4. This is a kind of ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, or better, a positive feedback: the more gold at your disposal, the faster you can research, then you can switch earlier to a better form of government (I usually just skip Monarchy and go for Republic), which gives you more gold, which pays for building upkeeps (marketplaces and banks for still more gold, temples for more happiness etc). Then you can trade your ‘old’ techs for still more gold and luxuries, and the wheel turns again and again.

An early ‘domination’:
In the early game, military ‘domination’ of the land, which will become your empire is essential, this is why Settler raiding is a perfectly acceptable policy.
A tech ‘domination’ is more difficult to achieve, because you can either trade techs and then everybody will be at the same level, or you can go for for instance for the GLibrary/GLighthouse (depending on which map you play on) and fall behind in techs (40 turns/34-40 turns each). Of course, your tech shortage will be only, well, short-lived.

A maximum of Wonders:
The possession of Wonders has always been a very emotional topic. Some people feel ‘cheated’ if they don’t acquire (one way or the other) all the existing and future Wonders. Fact is that you can win, and win handsomely, with only some of them. Which ones are really ‘necessary’ is an open debate, but I would say that the militaristic ones are clearly not on top of the list in a PUP game. Again, a pragmatic approach lets you choose which Wonders you deem essential, and the lack of some should not negatively influence the PUP score.
IM(H)O, I would say that the Sistine Chapel is overrated (you can compensate it with more luxuries and the luxury slider), and since PTW, Adam Smith looks more critical (no maintenance costs for harbours, airports, banks, commercial docks, stock exchange etc.).

Now, lets look what (almost) constant war brings to Arrian’s empire:
1) More territory/cities.
2) More resources/luxuries
3) Potential for Great Leaders
4) Tech/gold via peace treaties
5) A better chance of winning the tech & wonder races later in the game, since I'm hurting the AI now.

Point 1 is mandatory to get the geographical unity and critical size. After that, one could wonder if the fringe cities really contribute to the well-being of the empire, due to the corruption problem. Our two approaches are radically different: Arrian Palace-hopped twice to have it in the ‘ideal’ position, as tominimize corruption. I left it at the original place and build the FP about 10-12 tiles farther south, and called my most productive cities the CoreLand (see screenshot below).

In terms of resources, point 2 connects with point one: you need a viable empire, which must include Iron and Horses in the early game, for obvious reasons. Later on, the size itself should give you most of the other resources, but the lack of one should not be seen as justifying a war of conquest. In my case, I did not have aluminium, which is critical for the space race (among others), but I was confident I could trade for it. As for luxuries, once you have a tech lead, you can easily trade an ‘old’ tech for them, plus lots of gold.

GL are really useful for speeding up Wonders, the FP and the Palace relocation. I admit that building the FP from scratch takes a lot of time and monopolizes the resources of one city. Now, should you go to war for it? If you were assured to get at last one GL, the case would be much straightforward. But since you are by no means assured to get one, I would question the wisdom of it, if you go to war just for the sake of getting a GL. As for the instant Wonders, you can very well build them brick by brick as my French did. You won’t get all the Wonders, of course, but I already pointed out that you can achieve PUP without all of them.

Now, what about gold/tech via peace treaties? This seems the weakest explanation of all. According to my definition of PUP, a tech and gold lead is an essential requisite for it. Therefore, the whole empire is mobilized for the gold rush, since surplus gold is essential to the 4-6 turn research per tech from the Middle-Ages on. That means a weak military after Despotism (no upkeep), marketplaces and harbours very early on and the GLibrary. After the discovery of Education, the hoarded cash is used to research on a 4-6 turn/tech basis. Most of the researched techs are then immediately traded for another tech (if a civ researches another tech branch) and specially for gpt. If you were to go to war in the Middle Ages and later on, you should be by then at least at parity with the opposing civ in the tech race, and it should have been milked dry before the war. Its military upkeep should then prevent a fast research, whereas your hoarded cash and your running deals should not prevent you to still research techs in 4-6 turns. Therefore, after the war, you won’t be able to get any techs or gold from your ex-opponent.
The only exception to the above would be in the very early game if you have to war for the size of your empire. Since I’m assuming you would be researching Literature and/or Map Making as a priority, the unfortunate civ would be ahead of you in some other tech and therefore would include it/them in its peace deals.

Finally, does hurting the AI early help you on winning the tech and wonder races? Is it true that ‘the weaker the AI is, the stronger I am?’ Well, logically, yes.
But again, I have some doubts, and not only for the sake of an argument. I would even say that a strong AI, or better, some strong civs, are good for you empire. Let’s take an (simplified) example. What would you prefer, the Romans being 4 techs behind you and paying you 30 gold/turn for an ‘old’ tech or the Romans being ‘just’ 2 techs behind you and paying you 200 gold/turn? The 150 gold difference could very well mean 1 turn difference in the tech research for you, plus another ‘free’ city improvement (the cost of the upkeep, that is) in all your cities. As for the tech race, you are winning it anyway.

As for the Wonders, here is Arrian’s impressive list:

‘Built: Great Library, Hanging Gardens, Sistine, Sun Tzu, Leos, Copernicus, Newton, ToE
I rushed: Bachs, Smiths, Universal Suffrage, Hoover
I captured: Pyramids (Mongol), Oracle (Babs)
Other civs built: Colossus (French), Great Lighthouse (Korean), Magellan (French), Shakespeare (Korean).’

I did not get Bach, Hanging Gardens, Shakespeare, Sun Tsu, Colossus, but got the Great Lighthouse and Magellan (critical for me in this game), plus some Modern Times ones. At the end, neither of us had all the available Wonders, so what? We both won the game handsomely.

What are comparisons worth?
Not much. However, below are some figures. I cannot give you some of mine, since I (stupidly) deleted my saves and have only some screenshots left. The whole point of this is for me to show that both playstyles are very effective.

Arrian:
30AD: Despotism, 1196 gold, Currency in 2 turns
+156 gold from cities, +0 from other civs, -35 corruption.
Army: 10 workers, 3 warriors, 22 spears, 10 swords, 1 cat, 1 galley, 10 WC.
F11 stats: 78% approval (2nd), 247,800 pop (1), $156million GNP (1), 83 mgt (1), 38,400 sq. miles (1), 25% literacy (2), 8% disease (11), 27yrs (3), 1 child (3), 6 yrs service (15), $5 per capita (1), 248 productivity (1).

510AD: Republic, 1328 gold, Monotheism in 2, Golden Age.
+687 from cities, +0 other civs, - 115 corruption.
17 workers, 2 warriors, 23 spears, 11 swords, 1 pike, 1 cat, 1 galley, 5 horsemen, 37 war chariots.
79% approval (1), 6,056,000 pop (1), $687 mil (1), 280mgt (1), 48,700 sq. miles (1), 32% literacy (6), 6% disease (12), 30 yrs (2), 1 child (4), 6 yrs (15), $6 per capita (1), 898 (1).

Note: at this point the only war I had fought was vs. Babylon

1020AD: Monarchy, 1543 gold, Chemistry in 3 turns.
+698 from cities, +43 from other civs, -100 corruption.
10 workers (but lots of slaves), 1 warrior, 1 sword, 35 pikes, 5 muskets, 35 knights, 9 cats, 1 galley, 1 army, 5 med inf.
73% approval (3), 14,447,000 pop (1), $698 mil (1), 345 mgt (1), 91,600 sq. miles (1), 39% literacy (4), 2% disease (11), 55yrs (1), 1 child (11), 3 yrs (15), $7 per capita (1), 1002 (1).

1680AD: Democracy, 11,296gold, Motorized Transport in 4 turns.
+5220 from cities, +506 from other civs, -1159 corruption.
30 workers (countless slaves), 5 knights, 60 cavalry, 92 infantry, 24 artillery, 5 galleons, 1 transport, 13 ironclads, 3 destroyers, 7 armies.
99% approval (1), 77,386,000 pop (1), $5220 mil (1), 3105 mgt (1), 230,900 sq. miles (1), 53% literacy (6), 0% disease (2), 1 ton pollution (8), 74 yrs (1), 1 child (9), $11 per capita (1), 7507 (1).
I've moved my Palace again, switched to democracy, built railroads, hospitals, policestations, stock exchanges, and I'm workin' on those commercial docks. The only cities that are slightly neglected are my Scandanavian possessions, and my three small island cities off my west coast. But the $11,296 I had kicking around could easily have changed that at any time.

MS:

1080AD: Republic, 6’276 gold, Theory of Gravity 1 turn.
+857 from cities, +139 from other civs, -121 corruption.

1450AD: Republic, 19’659 gold, Refining 7 turns
+1265 from cities, +486 from other civs, +50 interests, -214 corruption

1555AD: Republic, 29’448 gold, Mass Production 4 turns. All factories rushed.

1715AD: Republic, 32’448 gold, Nuclear Power 7 turns. Almost all cities on ‘Wealth’ (nothing else to build), 4 techs/lead.
Overall military since the Republic: less than 20 units on average (regularly upgraded).
1 Worker/city.

Arrian’s final comment: ‘Warfare made it possible.’
MS final comment on Arrian’s comment: ‘Tending your garden made it also possible.”

So, thanks a lot still being with me. Before some screenshots (I hope Arrian will ad his), just a reminder of a reminder, in capital letters to make it clear: THE PUROPSE OF ALL THIS IS NOT PROVE PUP IS SUPERIOR TO UP. THERE ARE NO ‘BETTER’ WAYS.

MS final comments on all comments: ‘This is why Civ is so interesting’.

Announcement

Leave a comment:

Leave a comment: