The Care, Feeding, and Death of Neighboring Civs

[Arrian]

Theseus,

Heh, good to hear you will be around for a while.

Yeah, I just love the idea of a size 1 tundra island city being the only AI settlement. It brings back fond memories of CivII, and it is the ultimate expression of ultimate power. I think I will destroy the French utterly, and then surround the Russian island (it's two squares) entirely with privateers. I'm a baaaaaad man.

I actually haven't touched my computer since last week, so I have no new updates or insights.

With regard to difficulty level, I like Monarch (for now) precisely because there is more room for error. I'm still experimenting with the game, trying to figure out the best way to achieve my always-sought-after "ultimate power." I figure I will probably play CivIII as long as I played CivII... and that was 5 years. I've got plenty of time to deal with the higher difficulties.

-Arrian

[Arrian]

Ok, one of the major obstacles to "milking" a game for score is culture. Too much culture. Avoiding a cultural victory can be difficult. Thus far, I've heard one way of dealing with it: selling your cultural improvements, particularly libraries and universities.

Then it struck me... what about mobilization? Though I've never actually tested it, the manual says mobilization will cut your cultural output in half. Therefore, you could significantly prolong a game without going to each city and selling cultural buildings. Further, if you really wanted to, you could do both - sell your cultural stuff, rebuild the really important ones (temples/cathedrals/colloseums), and then mobilize. That's a lot of extra turns, no?

Take my Japanese game as an example. I will be building no more cities. Every city has what it needs. It is now just a matter of finishing my railroads, irrigating some more and cleaning some pollution. Sure, there is the small matter of destroying France and sending dear Cathy off to her tundra isle, but mobilization hardly gets in the way of that. Frankly, so long as I can still build "wealth" under mobilization, I can't see why I shouldn't mobilize until the end.

Thoughts?

-Arrian

[Aeson]

I think there is a happiness penalty for mobilization. I would only use it if absolutely necessary. Like if you had sold off every cultural improvement already except un-sellable ones.

[Arrian]

Ah-hah, so there is a potential pitfall. Does anyone have confirmation of this unhappiness penalty? Does mobilization create war weariness?

-Arrian

[Aeson]

It might just be an indirect effect of staying at war for long periods of time in a representative government. It's been a while since I've used it.

Mobilization ends when you make peace right? So you would have to be at war to stay in Mobilization. This would quickly undermine the happiness in either a Republic or a Democracy.

[Arrian]

No, that's just it... you can mobilize when at peace. Then you can just stay there. In fact, you must make peace in order to get out of mobilization -> therefore, if you mobilize while not at war, you just get into a war and then make peace so that you can toggle out of mobilization.

-Arrian

[Aeson]

Ok, just checked and mobilization doesn't have any inherant unhappiness. You could keep double the number of cultural happiness improvements by using it, good thinking Arrian!

[Arrian]

Muwahahaha!

It's an exploit, of course, in that one would be using mobilization for something other than its intended purpose. But only those who actually wish to delay victory would use it thus, so I figure no harm, no foul.

Ahh, time to go home. Time flies when you're postin' on 'poly.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

That mobilization thing is a really sweet hint, thank you Arrian ! Although I doubt I will do it in my current game (GOTM6), because milking a warlord game for a few hundreds more score ain't fun for me (probably I will win either by culture or conquest), I will no doubt try this in future games.

As for your time to go home... it's always interesting to see the schedule of people in other timezones. Sometimes I try to guess where people live by this. For example, when it's after-lunch time for me, Arrians 'Poly time begins. It's pretty easy to make difference of Americans, Europeans and people from Far East. The only exception is Aeson. He posts at all times, and if I didn't know he's American, I would suppose he's in a jet flying around the world... Do you have a RL far from 'Poly and CivFanatics, Aeson?

[Arrian]

Sir Ralph,

Heh, I hope you didn't just figure out where I'm from, given that "Bristol, CT, USA" is right under my name

I loaded up my Japanese game last night and mobilized. No harm done, and culture is indeed halved. I literally have nothing left to build (well, ok, there are like two cities where I don't have a hospital but that's no big deal). I can wipe out Russia and France whenever I choose... I will probably wait for Tanks (I'm at mass production now... just short of 1500AD). Anyway, it works, but of course only if you have fully developed cities and don't mind being restricted to military units/buildings or wealth.

-Arrian

[Harovan]

He he he, Arrian, wasn't Bristol a city in England? Kidding of course, but some (including me) don't write their location in the profile. Or can you explain, where "orangesoda" is?

[Aeson]

The only exception is Aeson. He posts at all times, and if I didn't know he's American, I would suppose he's in a jet flying around the world...

shhhh... no one's supposed to know about my jet! I'd get audited by the IRS for sure.

[Arrian]

Uh-oh, you gave yourself away, Aeson, by mentioning the IRS.
Bastards... I recently wrote a rather large check to my uncle sammy.

[Theseus]

Arrian,

Not too far from Meriden, right?

I was just up there visiting a buddy from college.

Re Aeson, I believe that he lives in appr. 150 different cities, and is intent on living in every city in the world.

[Harovan]

According to Aesons GOTM6 spoiler post in CivFanatics, he lives in at least 300 cities What about a new measurement unit? 1 Aeson (1 Ae) = 250 cities? 10 cities would be 40 mAe, 50 cities 200 mAe and so on.

Oops. dragging a serious strategy discussion more and more offtopic, shame on me. well, the 1.21f readme is here.