Serdoa's SPOILER-Thread: I am legend?

[civac2]

Back then you also had infinite range railroads. You could capture an entire empire in a single turn by building railroads through it if you had enough workers/engineers/terraformers.

[Serdoa]

Hm... well, then it either was the Commando-promotion I used or I mix it up with some mods I played - FFH I think either allowed it or at least you could get promotions so fast that it made no difference, something like that... Oh well, it doesn't matter now, but I do really need to remember that, for my own movement-range as well as that of the others. Thank you all for the input.

[Thoth]

Ok, actual game mechanic question: I thought that you could use roads in your enemies territory, even if you are at war with him. That obviously isn't the case as I realized some turns ago, but ... why? Do I misremember that you could or was that changed in the mod?

You could use enemy roads in Civ 1,2 and 3.

[naufragar]

FFH I think either allowed it or at least you could get promotions so fast that it made no difference, something like that...

Certain FFH leaders got Commando for free. (Raider trait.)

[Serdoa]

Ok, actual game mechanic question: I thought that you could use roads in your enemies territory, even if you are at war with him. That obviously isn't the case as I realized some turns ago, but ... why? Do I misremember that you could or was that changed in the mod?

You could use enemy roads in Civ 1,2 and 3. 

If it wasn't clear from how bad I play: I've actually never played those   well, ok, I think I did play a little Civ 2 or 3, but that was certainly not close to how involved I got with Civ 4.

[Serdoa]

So, dear reader, if you ask yourself: "What's going on in this game?" be assured I do the same. Gathering my thoughts on each player from doing best to worst currently:

1) Lewwyn ran away to a strong leader position, seemingly unchecked by his neighbors. Probably due to a mixture of reasons, consisting most likely of having some units at the right time at the right spots. lakes throughout the map acting as natural barrier and jungle in the middle making the region not as contested as those silver and gold spots that scream "Fight over me! Yeah, spill your blood on my shiny stones!".

He coupled that advantage with good play and smart strategic decisions. Stonehenge is one of these examples. How he got away so long without building many - if any - Monoliths is beyond me (which partly hinges on me not having seen his part of the map). Why none of the other civs with religion built it is beyond me as well. 

However, he might soon reach the end of the usefulness of IMP. He will still be clearly leading and I am sure he has a plan how to acquire more land. If those he takes it away from will willingly oblige is a different matter though.

2) NoGas played a good but ultimately uneventful game, being conservative and risk-averse, leading them to an ok position. They would be 3rd or maybe even 4th placed but by sheer virtue of me keeping my neighbors in check, they could rush to the second position. They still do miss cities imo, but seem to have backline islands to settle onto. Bob should compete with them about those, but I don't see much to make me believe that will actually happen. 

Apart from that their GLH city's culture is becoming a problem. I will try to counter with a Library of my own but I probably have to brush up my culture calculation formulas to see if that would even help. Let's hope for them that it does

3) Rusten has expanded quickly and would be surely second, maybe even first. He did lose 2 cities - newly planted but still - against me and since then refuses peace. Seems we will play grudge match till the end of this game. Can't blame him but I believe he still would have good chances if he actually goes for them instead of trying to hurt me. 

I have to admit, I also don't know if he actually did much besides expanding. I get the feeling that similarly to NoGas he played a good game - but also kind of a snoozefest. Probably the way to win tbh... just so unimaginable boring. 

4) SD also lost a city to me ... have their been any wars without my involvement? Anyhow, he wasn't doing that bad and wasn't as aggressive as I was made to believe he would be. From what I can see, I think he has settled too much into the jungle area - the city I took is basically dumped directly into the jungle and I can't believe that was even close to the best city he could plant at that point. Even if you argue that he tried to make land gains I would assume that towards Lewwyn or NoGas there should be better land to secure. He also did not secure the land.

I think against players like Rusten and Lewwyn and NoGas he always will have a hard time, simply by the fact that he does play in so many games that he cannot have the same level of attention to detail as these guys have. That isn't a problem in faster paced games, but in a PBEM or PB in which you have hours to think about your next move and days to think about your strategy for the next 20, it adds up. 

5) Bob has played pretty much as I expect it from him by now. Meaning I believe he tries to do what is fun for him without feeling inclined to invest hours above hours into this game. That has led to a similar position as SDs, not doing badly, but just not as good as the others. I don't think that really is an issue though as long as he is happy with it. And sometimes the powerhouses bog themselves down in a war so long that someone staying out of all trouble can emerge victorious. I don't think that will be the case on this map though.

And that leaves me. Let's look at Demos:



GNP is slowly looking up. The real average of the 3 opponents in the middle is 97, though I am clearly behind in culture so part of that has to do with that. I am still obviously behind. Noble told me that Circumnavigation does something for your economy - I didn't know. I am missing like 6 tiles to achieve it. Unfortunately I'd have to jump with my warrior to an island to simply finish it - the jumping is possible by declaring war on Bob while my unit is in his borders. But my tests show that there is no way I can make him jump to any of the island tiles, it will instead jump longer distances to tiles farther away from my closest city but on the same landmass as my warrior. That's a bummer as it would have been sooo cool to do it this way. I still expect to be leading in GNP in approx. 10 turns (no, I'm not). 

MfG is middle of the pack. 70 leading, 39 last and I'm 4th with 52 means there is one player with somewhere between 52 and 39. In the worst case the other two have on average 63.5 production at best they have 57 production. That's all fine and dandy for me. I do have several hills to grow onto, a city that is basically a drag (thanks SD ) and in general not enough workers. 

Food looks finally good. Still 2nd, but now with a more obvious lead. The true average is 101.3 for the remaining 3 opponents. I believe the truth is more that someone else is still under 100, probably 94 - 98. That would lead the other two (NoGas, Rusten) at ~104-108. 

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How will this game end? Concession to Lewwyn with Rusten getting frustrated with having lost his winning position, Noble realizing that there is only so much they can run over with Cataphracts and that Lewwyn does the same just with Knights but equally fast, SD being filleted between Lewwyn and NoGas and Bob being indifferent if we play on or not.

[pindicator]

Thank you for being the player who keeps this from being a snooze fest.

Also, I remember that unit's teleporting from war / closed borders have a bias towards staying on the same landmass. Not sure on the details

[Charriu]

Thank you for being the player who keeps this from being a snooze fest.

Also, I remember that unit's teleporting from war / closed borders have a bias towards staying on the same landmass.  Not sure on the details

That is correct, see here: teleporation mechanic

[Serdoa]

Thank you for being the player who keeps this from being a snooze fest.

Also, I remember that unit's teleporting from war / closed borders have a bias towards staying on the same landmass.  Not sure on the details

That is correct, see here: teleporation mechanic

I actually had read that before I started my tests. But I hadn't seen anything in there that there was a bias for staying on the same landmass. Maybe I overlooked it? And if it is bias - on what is that bias based, can it be "tricked"? I've only tested with the tile closest to my desired target-tile and those surrounding it, but maybe it would work from somewhere within his borders and not at the edges?

[Serdoa]

Thank you for being the player who keeps this from being a snooze fest.

I sometimes have trouble interpreting tone via text, but if that was not just a joke about me attributing basically half the player-field as playing boring and unimaginative than "Thank you"  I think I said at the beginning that I try to take it a little more lightly and I really meant that. I do micro sure - but not 20 micro plans per turn. I do think about strategic decisions, but if there is a city undefended, I'll attack it. Not because it is the best move, but because it really gets BOOORING if you builder up for 150 turns, have one short decisive war by whoever built up best and then sit around crippled and wonder why again you play this game