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Epic Forty-one: Balance of Power

Hi,

Quote:I have the impression you tried hard to control the AI civs' development by peaceful means as long as you could

Yes, that had been one of my goals as I wanted to see how much diplomacy and trading resources could really do. Another goal for me was not to use blockades of any kinds. Even if they were allowed by a special rule for this Epic, I still regard them as cheezy (no offense meant, T-hawk - just a different style of playing wink ).

The biggest mistake I made was that my wars to help the weak were initiated through alliances so that I wasn't allowed to pillage the strong civs, most notably Russia. On the other hand I don't know how I should have tricked Russia into attacking me as they didn't have any units in my territory, so maybe it wasn't a mistake but only bad luck. Well, at least I didn't have the early Istanbul accident others had. :blink:

I hope more reports will be posted today, and I'm looking forward to the statistics you had planned to make!

-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Hi,

Quote:The game was a great concept. I may have to borrow it for a SG later on

This gave me an idea. For the next Epic that invloves any kind of scoring, what about one or more SG teams participating in the tournament? This could either be done via the CFC forum, where we rely upon the other participants not reading the thread until report day, or it could be done via email, where the save is sent to the next player and all reports and strategy discussions happen with all SG players in the CC: field of the mail.

It would be interesting to see how a team would fare against single players. The advantage of the team would be a higher amount of micromanagement and patience/willingness for tedium, and probably more creative ideas. The disadvantage would be that a team would have more difficulties in pursuing a specific long-term strategy, especially if the players all have a different style of playing.

Would team entries be allowed in an Epic? And if so, would there be interest in doing this? With a post in the CFC forum, this could also be a way to get some new players involved. What do you think?

-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Congratulations for your victory! It seems you did not really want to try to keep the balance though... Why are your scores so low for the later ages? What civs, and when, got eliminated?

Bihary
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You're right, I didn't keep the balance because I didn't know how.
I played my normal game, except I tried to stay out of war and build
the UN as quickly as possible. That strategy failed. Prussia was the
leader going into the Industrial Age and when #2 France went to war
I thought it a good thing, but Joanie took every last Prussian city,
in just a few turns. I had no military with which to intervene. So a
big, fat zero. That was easily worth 5 points on my IA score. The
Russians survived into the Modern Age, but just couldn't remain peaceful.
No, the weak civs always have to declare war on the strong civs and
suffer the elimination penalty. I, myself, had to eliminate the Dutch
just to end the game, and by the Modern Age, I had enough Modern Armor
to intervene just enough to save Turkey and Spain after their ill-advised
declarations against France. So the final score reflects 3 big zeros.
It never occurred to me to irrigate the lands of small civs, and I got beat
to Zeus by 1 or 2 turns. Had the Dutch not declared war on me, I might've
built the UN got their vote (they were polite at the time) and won
5-2, with the Russians still in the game, my final age score would not
be so pathetic. By the way, I didn't know I only had 1 shot at a UN vote.
I didn't win until the 4th vote.
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I see. I hope you had a good game. I am sure you will get some ideas about how to balance the game from the other reports, just as I did.

Now in my opinion, absolute peace from the player's part was not a working option here for a competitive score. But going to war when necessary, is a decision one makes based on his playing level, or I would rather say, based on one's perceived playing level.
As for myself, I perceive myself as a strong emperor player, so I dared to interfere in the ancient age against Prussia, who was a distant civ. But when war was at my own backdoor with Italy sneak-attacking, I panicked and ended up in a complicated web of alliances.
Now look at the experienced players' report: They were actually happy they were attacked by the strongest civs, so they could retiliate honorably.
As I said, it is the PERCEIVED strength that counts. I advise you, as I was advised by others on this forum, to try brave early wars under the right circumstances: You will be suprised how much control you have, and how much fun it can be.

Thanx again for playing,

Bihary
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Hi,

Quote:I advise you [...] to try brave early wars under the right circumstances: You will be suprised how much control you have, and how much fun it can be.

The best school for learning just how early you can start a brave war against a stronger AI and still be able not only to survive, but actually get something out of that war, is to play a succession game with Charis. hammer You really learn to redefine "brave" and "early" playing with him, and every time I declare war on someone now, I feel guilty about all my useless units defending core cities, essentially doing nothing... lol

You'll have to wait for his 2nd reincarnation to appear to be able to do that, though. :P

-Kylearan
There are two kinds of fools. One says, "This is old, and therefore good." And one says, "This is new, and therefore better." - John Brunner, The Shockwave Rider
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Hmm, some familiar situations here. Prussia demands tribute early and declares war and gets beaten up by the Statue of Zeus, then Russia demands but doesn't declare. smile


I had no problems defending against the Dutch thanks to my ancient cavalry and trebuchets, but France led the score now, had chivalry and had already captured a Prussian city. Uh oh, that's what you get for inciting wars far away you cannot really control...

Indeed. That's why I never signed any alliances until very late, when I had full control over what the two warring civs could do to each other.


In 520AD, banking came in. I traded it to Turkey for chemistry, and while they were willing to pay an additional 43gpt, I didn't take it.

I always took whatever cash I could get for techs, and didn't gift techs unless I had a particular strategic reason (like making sure everybody got Republic together.) IMO, having 43gpt in your own pocket expanded your own balance options more than leaving the cash to another civ who'd probably go blow it on booze or smokes or Music Theory. smile


Unfortunately, Turkey had been horrible with improving their lands, and the jungle made may way to Prussia a real PITA. I feared I might have acted too late to save Prussia - would my forces arrive in time?

Of course, the solution to that was to improve Turkey's lands yourself. :D Did you ever run a heavy-duty worker farm?


To counter my high score, I had neglected building colisseums and cathedrals until now

It sounds like you built temples, though. The biggest score contribution from a single city is actually the first and second border expansions. Founding it adds 9 points/turn to your territory score, and growing it to size six adds 6-10 points depending on happiness. That first border expansion adds 12 points/turn, though, and the second expansion adds 16! I delayed building culture in all my border cities until quite late, which reduced my score without really materially affecting my productivity.


I actually had liked to avoid the GA to prevent an even further increase in score. Bummer.

The Golden Age increases shield and trade production, but that doesn't affect score. confused Power, yes, but not score.


I was amazed - they [Prussia] had lost another city to Spain, and were still on par with rest of the world?

Likely they got a free monopoly and traded it around. Scientific slingshot.


A word on bad AI tactics. On several occasions, I had to watch how the Russians used the blitz ability of their cossacks: When a cossack retreated from a fight, they immediately attacked the same target again with the redlined cossack, dying most of the time.

Heh. I noticed Turkey employing a similar tactic. AI civs generally won't attack infantry with cavalry and will avoid that losing proposition. But they will take shots at 10-defense infantry with 8-attack Sipahi, although that's also a losing proposition and cost my Turks many a horse.


Talking about irrigation: I also started to irrigate Dutch lands to maximize their growth, but then abandoned the project because it sounds exploitative to manipulate your "friends" like that. This could be a way to manipulate the wonder race, by the way: Just sign a RoP agreement with your competitor and remove all mines at the city building the wonder...

This is the sort of thing that's covered by the RBCiv spirit. There shouldn't be any rule against helping improve your rival's territory, but we know not to abuse that with sabotage masquerading as "improvements".


Railing my friends didn't help their score much, because it came too late to do much difference due to the way the score is calculated, that it's averaged over all turns. But at least I've tried, and every bit counts!


Railing your friends didn't directly impact their score much, but in my game at least, made a dramatic impact in the overall strength of the civs. The shield production from rails made a big difference in their production capabilities. They get factories and power plants built faster, and that inevitably rolls into military strength. My Istanbul-deprived Turks were aggressors by the end of the game.


I already had a UN prebuild running, so I gifted all scientific civs into the modern age

That's one tactic I didn't dare pull, actually. Gifting techs for tanks (Panzers!wink meant bad news for world balance as far as I could see. smile


As you can see, I was leading in score - that had definately been my biggest mistake in this Epic: Playing too good.

My own score was far ahead of yours, and I didn't really regret that at all. The miltary strength I had from building my empire more (don't forget the early FP) let me gain near-complete control of the industrial-era wars via blockades, and let me dismantle France easily when that became necessary.


Even if they were allowed by a special rule for this Epic, I still regard them as cheezy (no offense meant, T-hawk - just a different style of playing ).

Heh. If it's on the table, I'll use it - you know that. wink I don't recall any rules specifically permitting blockades - the only additional rule was that if you completely blockaded an ally, you had to be at war with their opponents as well.


I hope more reports will be posted today, and I'm looking forward to the statistics you had planned to make!

Me too. smile
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I have the impression you always know what you are doing, and you are always in complete control. Look at my report, all my blunders and misunderstanding...

It's not that I'm always in control. I was in this game, after the very early moves, but with a worse start or higher difficulty I'm often not.

It's that every move I make has a specific, clear reason, and the pieces always fit together. For example, building the Pyramids in this game, to deny all the AIs that drastically unbalancing effect - and then using that city for a potential 20k culture win as well. Another example was making London a heavy-duty worker factory (it built a worker every turn for nearly 100 turns!wink, and using those workers to improve the lands of the trailing civs.

I see in your report that you built Leonardo's Workshop. Why? Denial of that wonder isn't important at all. And you didn't have a pressing need to upgrade large amounts of military that you couldn't have done without Leo's. Those 600 shields could've either gone directly to more military, or to something better like Bach's which would help balance in two ways, making sure to deny it to a strong AI and in letting you give away some of your own luxuries. Later wonders like Smith's can be built just for the general advantage when you have production to spare, but Leonardo's is too early to do that.

Always have a goal for any move you make. I never get into a war without a specific, clear objective. My wars in this game had the goal of pillaging Prussia, pillaging Russia, conquering France, and every other war was purely defensive. For each, I had just about as much military as I needed, and met no real obstacles to reaching those goals.

Your only other real mistake was in the UN election. A rival civ must always be Polite to vote for you. If you didn't know that, well, now you do. smile


But really, how can you still enjoy playing civ?

How can Lance Armstrong still enjoy bicycling? :D
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Excellent game, I (as always) learned a lot from your report. Maybe that's why you give the impression of always being in control, not only do you have specific reasons for your actions, but in your reports you are usually able to articulate that reasoning in a way that seems almost prescient.

I wish I had played this game, I actually started it, but never got out of the Ancient Age due to RL time constraints. I had put some thought into how I wanted to use resources/luxuries and tech to influence the AI's, but never thought about the powerful use of pillaging and, conversely, irrigation to really shift the AI's development curves. It just goes to show, for scoring at least, this game really is around 90% about the food! wink Great job, and a good lesson learned.
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Being an avid SGer, I know that we could get at least five or six teams. Look at the way the SGOTM over at CFC is taking off, and the popularity of the RBCiv sponsored Conquests SGs. People like to be part of something bigger than themselves. I think it would really help take the community to another level in addition to adding new players to the fold.
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