Adv 48: Rowain's Race

[Rowain]

ADV 48
is an OCC on immortal diff (!) but we can change our 21 workable tiles to our hearts content (well not everything goes but the limitations are small).
An OCC poses always the difficulty of balancing production-research and growth. Especially if you try to spacerace with immortal AI’s.
The first decision I made is that I will forego any floodplains. The health issues the incur are something I want to avoid. The second was that I didn’t use any cottages. They take too long to grow and are therefor hard to replace once pillaged/spybombed. Additional as I plan to run Rep and Bureau instead of the cottage enhancing US/FS it made a lot of sense to use resources for commerce which leads to Incense (4 gl-tiles). For early happiness resources which might be traded for health once Globe is built I decided to use 3 plain hills one with each of the 3 (Gems, Gold, Silver).
For more production without hampering growth I used 3 iron + 2 copper on gl-tiles. That leaves the health+food problem open. I have no use for the weak food-tiles (Rice, Sugar, Sheep) so I made 1 pig,1 wheat, 1 corn and 1 banana gl tile. Additional trade routes and for that intercontinental trade routes are great for commerce so I made my city coastal (3 tiles) and added one of each the fishing resources (Fish, Clam, Crab) which also provide 2 health each(with a Harbor). As we start with fishing this has the additional advantage that we get early growth before we know Bronze-working. Now as I do need to get the Pyramids, Great Wall (to avoid Barb-troubles and to get Great Spies) and every other Wonder I can get my hands on I place 1 stone on the City tile (with the plains hill this resulted in a 3 hammer-citycenter J ) and the last open tile got Marble on it.

As the last touch every tile (beside the coastal ones) got a nice little forest on it.
With Izzy (religious nutcase) Shaka (total nutcase) and creative Sury on our continent and Cyrus + (financial) Hannibal on the other continent we have an interesting setup. I was relieved to see that Hanni didn’t have a coastal capital.

So game started workboat ordered, Warrior sent out to explore and research was set to Mining then BW followed by Masonry to chop out GW and Pyramids.

Contact was made soon (Izzy on t3, Sury on t5 and shake on turn 10). The first created Worker chopped out a colleague and both chopped out the GW on t35 and the Mids on t 49.
At turn 50 Shaka founded Judaism and converted which with Izzy already being Buddhist meant that there will be religious tensions on my continent which is great news. Turn 64 saw the completion of the Great Lighthouse followed by a swift Oracle. The later I used to get CoL and found Confucianism. At that time Sury was still without religion so I used the free missionary to convert him and heat the tensions up a little bit. Myself still remained without statereligion. The Great Lib completed at t81 followed by the Hanging Gardens ~10 turns later. At turn 95 I reached Civil Service and revolted to Bureaucracy and the first war-declaration happened. Shaka vs Sury. Other wonders follwed (MoM, Parthenon, Sistine, Colossus(t118 )and founding of Taoism which was follwed by the first demand (Izzy asked for Philosophie). As I could see the research on my continent (thanks to a settled GSpy) I bagged Lib until I could use it for Steel (on turn 155).
But before I arrived there the one thing I knew would come happened: Shaka declared war on me (t147). His armies consisted of cats and horsearchers and Axes while I could field Maces, Pikes and was 2 turns from Gunpowder so the damage he could inflict was minimal. The one annoying thing was that it took a long time until he was happy to sign peace without asking for something (till t 172).
During the war I build a caravel and sailed it across the ocean where I met Hannibal. Of course without paying attention I traded him Banking + Philo for Printing Press and Horse Riding (+60gold and WM) Now on first glance this looks like a good trade alas I was 1 turn from discovering PP myself so pure on my part. At this time my techlead was still great and after the discovery of RR I used a stored GE to found mining Inc (t189). On t210 I caved to another Izzy-demand (600g) which I did easily as I was making 102gpt while running 100% science (settled Gmerchants and the shrine). 2 turns later the Khmer who have been at war with Shaka and Izzy ceased to exist and naturally Shaka was soon afterwards knocking at my door again (war decl t225). This time it only took 8 turns (peace t233) till he saw the error in his ways. He was fielding Knights while I had Machine Guns, Infantry and at the end Artillery).
In the year 1670AD (t244)Apollo Project was completed and my techlead was still there. More disturbing I have lost the tech visibility on Izzy and never gained it on any on the other continent. With other words those Immortal AI’s have finally enough big and powerful cities to blow through techs/spend enough on Spy-points to kick my ass.

On t260 Cahokia turned legendary and the first intercontinental war broke loose: Izzy vs Hannibal. (btw the intercont. traderoutes earned 12 commerce each). This War soon spread with Cyrus declaring on Hannibal and finally Shaka declaring on Izzy (t270). This also become the last mistake of Shaka as he was wiped out by Izzy on t302. During this time Cyrus decided to gift me flight(t277) so my techlead was definitely vaporing and on t 288 both Cyrus and Hannibal completed their Apollo Project so the race was definitely on.
The aforementioned end of the Zulu also put me on a continent alone with one Superpower so I had to manipulate Izzy into liking me as I would not stand a chance against an immortal AI.
Luckily Izzy is easy to manipulate: I converted to Buddhism (her religion) and to her favorite civic (Theocracy). This move paid rich credit as Izzy decided to declare vs Hannibal (~15 turns later) and working together with Charles managed to wipe out the carthagians. During the next 40 turns till the launch of the Spaceship (t338 ) I sweated blood everytime I saw a spy-message on the screen but luckily they were either thwarted by counter-spionage or preferred to steal tech (which they did several times). Once the ship was launched I felt quite save as Izzy was already friendly with me and I don’t fear an intercontinental invasion although Cyrus has built the Manhatten Project.

Spaceship Victory on t 350 (1930AD). While I managed to have a techlead on Izzy and Charles Cyrus had all normal techs like me so no points here to gain or lose. The other AI (Sury, Shaka and Hanni died )

In the end: I think I might have fared better with building research more often than wonders.
As several of those I only built because I could (Kremlin for example).
A last vies into Cahokia:

and the GNP-graph:

[regoarrarr]

Nice game Rowain - I agree that trading with Hannibal was a bit of - I think the best move was to just not trade with anyone ever.

Interesting though that Shaka founded Judaism in your game - in mine, I founded Conf and Tao and Izzy founded the other 5. Nice move on sowing religious strife with that Confu missionary - I did a similar thing in my game but lucked out that Izzy and Shaka and I all were able to share the same religion

[haphazard1]

Nice game, Rowain.

Interesting to see how differently things developed with the AIs. You had a powerful Izzy who wiped out Hannibal. In my game Izzy was killed by an AI dogpile (no action taken by me at all), and Hannibal was the world leader at the end having built Manhattan and busily nuking Sury. Even though we had the same initial religious distribution (Izzy Buddhist, Hinduism on the other continent, Shaka Jewish, and I founded Confu and sent the missionary to Sury), we saw very different outcomes.

[regoarrarr]

Nice game, Rowain.

Interesting to see how differently things developed with the AIs. You had a powerful Izzy who wiped out Hannibal. In my game Izzy was killed by an AI dogpile (no action taken by me at all), and Hannibal was the world leader at the end having built Manhattan and busily nuking Sury. Even though we had the same initial religious distribution (Izzy Buddhist, Hinduism on the other continent, Shaka Jewish, and I founded Confu and sent the missionary to Sury), we saw very different outcomes.

When was Hinduism founded in your games? I actually managed to found it myself on T37 in my game but buried it. I also sent the Confu missionary to Sury but in my game Shaka was Buddhist as well as Izzy founded Judaism

[haphazard1]

When was Hinduism founded in your games? I actually managed to found it myself on T37 in my game but buried it. I also sent the Confu missionary to Sury but in my game Shaka was Buddhist as well as Izzy founded Judaism

T37? Wow. Hinduism was founded on T17 in my game, on the other continent (would have to check who). Buddhism went to Izzy on T9, Judaism rather late at T50 to Shaka. All the AIs on my continent hated each other.

[Rowain]

When was Hinduism founded in your games? I actually managed to found it myself on T37 in my game but buried it. I also sent the Confu missionary to Sury but in my game Shaka was Buddhist as well as Izzy founded Judaism

Budd on turn 9 (izzy). Hindu on turn 18 (Charles), judaism on t 50(shaka), Conf orakled t 67(me), taoism t 119 (me), christ by hannibal(no clue when) who switched later(~t 211) to it, Islam by Izzy

Edit: After reading your report haphazard1 I see the difference: It was Hannibal in your game that founded Hindu so your continent stayed united while by me Charles founded Hindu and Hanni founded Christianity. His switching to it made him the friendless outcast.

[T-hawk]

Yeah, the religion map makes a real difference to AI progress. My design intent was for Isabella and Sury to have different religions, and the Zulu would probably share one of them. So the player could be most likely safe from Shaka and one of the first two (who also have conflicting favorite civics), but have to stay wary of the other. Of course, the religions played out in wildly different ways across the games, but it's a constant that any continent that became a religious lovefest shot ahead in tech.

I also hoped that Shaka would research badly enough that it would be easy to fight him off with far superior units. That sure happened in a lot of games including yours.

Back to your game, 1929 AD is a bit on the late side for space. I'm guessing that goes directly with only 1100 research in the city, compared to 1800-2000 for some others. I'm sure you realize that incense wasn't such a great idea - grassland gold was better. But thanks for playing and for the report!

[Gold Ergo Sum]

The lack of religious strife on my continent definitely caused the A.I. to be farther ahead in tech than they were in some of the other games I saw. And the fact that I actually traded away techs, or just gifted them away when they came begging, because I didn't know how the game was scored, obviously helped them as well. I probably should've sowed more inter-civ warfare.

[Rowain]

Back to your game, 1929 AD is a bit on the late side for space. I'm guessing that goes directly with only 1100 research in the city, compared to 1800-2000 for some others. I'm sure you realize that incense wasn't such a great idea - grassland gold was better. But thanks for playing and for the report!

Of course grassland gold is better but somehow it didn't occur to me to use it. Another mistake was to build useless wonders instead of building research. The use of privateers was something I didn't consider too. I should have used my military advantage to stop Izzy and Cyrus (at t250 I was the only one with Inf and Arty and 3turns away from tanks/Marines). OTOH I played it just last Sunday and was rushed to complete it so I doubt I would have had the time to execute a military campaign.