Adventure 22 - sooooo's report

[sooooo]

Adventure 22 - Brick by Brick

This game was set on the Hemispheres map. Emperor difficulty, No Tech Brokering and the variant rule was that we could never have the most land.

We are playing with Pericles, which should be fun. He has Frederick's old traits from Vanilla, and Frederick was always a favourite of mine. The Greek unique building (Odeon) also seems excellent. My plan was: in the early game make use of farms and specialists, don't cottage much at all. Then later on once I had some land and some tech I would plant some cottages and maybe go to emancipation to grow them, depending on how things worked out.

OK, the starting position seems ... woody. I settled on the spot, missing out on the cows which were to be revealed. The only thing a worker could occupy himself with is to farm the rice until we researched bronze working. Since we don't start with agriculture, that means that a worker first would probably be a bad move. So I start with a warrior and research agriculture. Worker began once the warrior completed and we were at size 2, and then we got the techs needed to chop trees down. After another warrior I made my usual move of chopping out a second worker before settler, then warrior, then chopping out a settler. I guess no one will roll their eyes at early chopping in this game since without it one cannot improve any tiles!

We are on our own little island with Mansa Musa. We had no copper so I went to archery for defence. First city was here:



Our second and third cities are placed west of Athens to box Mansa Musa off. We claim some floodplains with Sparta and some stone wih Corinth. You can see I am researching masonry so as to build a quarry and start the pyramids.



As our half-price libraries are whipped around our lands we finish the pyramids and adopt representation to make our scientists instantly twice as clever.



The happy benefit for the pyramids is also crucial because currently I haven't planted a city near the only happiness resource in our half of the continent: silver.

The SP (Stupid Palace) was built very early in my game, in 75BC. It was a hindu palace, not a religion I knew of in any cities on this hemisphere. In fact, our hemisphere seemed to be reilgionless with only Taoism and Islam to go.

By 1AD we have a line of cities from east to west, spanning the continent. Our science rate is struggling at 20% so I have to halt expansion for a while.



But the beaker per turn count is decent because of representation. In that picture I am building metal units because previously my culture stole a Malinese copper mine in the north. On this exact turn the Malinese got that tile back and I would have to reassign the builds.

Mansa founds Taoism a few turns before I could lighbulb Philosophy, that's annoying. I was still able to get some trades for the tech from Darius and Hatty however. Mansa spreads Taoism to our hemisphere and I convert in 325 AD.



I am hooking up the marble that has just been captured by Athens' culture, and am researching towards literature and the great library. The wonder was completed in Athens in 500AD.



Darius had found us earlier, and we also found Hatshepsut later on to complete our hemisphere. Hmm, 3 good techers to compete with in a builder variant. I am struggling slightly on techs and have to keep up by trading. As usual, researching compass gets me out of the whole - man I love that tech.



Does anyone else think that No Technology Brokering actually makes you into even more of a tech whore? If you get a monopoly tech, but only one AI has anything to trade for it you would not normally make the trade because the AI you give your monopoly to would trade it away - instead you would risk waiting, until other AIs have techs to give you. But with the option checked, you have no worries and can make the trade.

Anyway, with phiosophy and CoL researched, I decided that I didn't need slavery any more and revolted to a niiiice set of civics for an empire running specialists.



So it's probably a good time to make a PLAN. It seems our hemisphere is all happy together, all being Taoists. Mansa founded Islam but has not spreaded it around. The only land I could realistically conquer was Mansa's but that did not seem a good plan to me. His lands were mostly plains and it would cost a lot in terms of economy and diplomacy to conquer them. So for now it would be peaceful. In fact, diplomacy seemed a good option now. Hopefully with the other hemisphere having 1 less civ than us (assuming there were the default 7 civs in the game) then one of them would be population leader and I could gain the taoist's votes, then raze the cities of any civs on the other continent that wouldn't vote for me.

With the great library and pacifism I was getting lotsa great people. An academy was built in Athens and a few scientsts were settled there. Others lightbulbed techs. One of them got paper and an engineer built the University of Sangkore. Not sure how great that wonder is, but it did gain me more beakers than just settling the engineer and denyed it to my opponents.



But due to the weird tech bug I talked about in the info thread I couldn't trade paper to anyone except Hatty. Which was annoying. Another scientist lightbulbed education, so here is the obligatory liberalism-taking-nationalism pic:



By 1190 AD I had all the cities I would plant on our home island. The newer cities were not connected to the river system so mainly got cottages. The older cities continued to work mainly specialists. Corinth built the national epic and pumped out many a GP. Athens' forests were continually chopped throughout the growth of the city, converting it to a cottage-fest to take advantage of bureaucracy.



Optics was next and I built some caravels to see who was on the other hemisphere.

Asoka, Lincoln and Elizabeth ... hmm I sense Darrelljs has hand-picked these leaders! Well, that's interesting. They are all behind in tech quite a way despite them being strong teching personalitites and this being emperor. Also Hatty seems to have crashed her economy by overexpanding while neglecting to build cottages. These reduced bonuses look to have seriously hampered the emperor AIs. I had also caught up with Darius (kinda) and Mansa so the tech situation was looking pretty good. Obligatory pic of finishing the Taj Mahal:



So, time to add to the PLAN. Looking at the statistics, Lincoln was quite away ahead in population. Great! So, how could I get the other two's votes .... oh Jese they both have free religion as favoutire civics! Now normally that's really bad for a diplo attempt because you cannot convert them to your religion. But in this game it could be good because I could abandon Taoism for Free Religon later on. Darius ALSO favours that civic! Mansa is very easy to get the votes even without the religion benefit by going into his favoured Free Market civic. That leaves Hatty. She has Org Religion as a favourite civic, so that's out because it's in the religion column. But since we've been friends for a while and have no negatives, I think I can get the +8 just from trading (that's +4 for starters) and open borders, peace, resource trading etc.

Right, so to Mass Media then! Printing Press, lightbulb twice for Scientific Method, then I see Mansa is researching physics and will beat me so I research biology instead and trade it to him for physics. Then electicity, radio, mass media, us the saved GE to rush the united nations in 1630 AD.



Asoka and Elizabeth had to be gifted techs to get them to liberalism then they took up their favourite civic (I had to bribe elizabeth). I had converted myself to free religion a while ago. One slightly worrying thing was that Lincoln kept voting for Asoka in the Stupid Palace elections and getting +2 modifiers.

So, Asoka votes for Lincoln in the secratary general elections. We are both friendly with the Indian, with Lincoln getting his modifiers almost exclusively from the +8 "You voted for us" modifiers from the Stupid Palace. With the UN obsoleting the SP, shouldn't modifiers from it also be obsoleted? No? Worth a try.



Bugger! That should leave me slightly short in the diplo vitory vote. And it does.



Hmm, I'm not that many votes short, maybe this could be solved without going to war. I upped the espionage slider and spammed spies and privateers. Cancelled resource deals with Asoka and Lincoln, traded away my resources to my friends, pirated their fishing nets etc. Before I could really implement my grand poisoning plan of the american water, I unexpectedly won the game.



So 100 years after the UN was built we achieved a diplomatic victory in 1735 AD.

What changed? Well, I got friendlier than Lincoln was with Asoka. The bonuses from shared civics, resources and open borders increased in quick succession, getting me his votes. Hatty turned out to not be a problem, asking for help twice for 2 nice diplo points. The key to securing all the votes on my own continent was not getting any negatives. This was fairly easy with none of them having worst enemies.

With the choice of AIs, espeicially with 3 of them having the same favoutite civic and another one being Mansa Musa, I think diplomacy will be a popular victory type. Also culture would be easyish with all the peaceful AIs on the map. Space would be pretty hard, with Darius teching well throughout the game and the civs on the other hemisphere improving in the endgame due to their vast areas of land.

Thanks to Darreljs for sponsoring the game. The variant was cool. I think one or two aggressive AIs could have made the game a bit spicier.

[Kylearan]

Hi,

great game, congrats on the victory! I considered employing a specialist economy too in my game, but a SE needs more micromanagement and thus more time, so I spammed cottages instead.

I upped the espionage slider and spammed spies and privateers. Cancelled resource deals with Asoka and Lincoln, traded away my resources to my friends, pirated their fishing nets etc.

Nice move - I have to remember this.

-Kylearan

[Sullla]

Excellent game, sooooo. I remember when you first came here to RBCiv, most of your games were violent kill-fests. It's nice to see how you've continued to get better and better at the diplomatic side of things, resulting in this marvelously fine-tuned UN victory. I certainly couldn't have done it any better myself! Thanks for an entertaining read.

[darrelljs]

I have to echo Sulla's comments, a perfectly played Diplomatic victory. Unfortunately I did not notice the favorite civic synergy, I was really focused on finding the right set of tech happy builders. Speaking of which, how were you doing in tech at the time? Do you feel you were in a position to win a space race? It seems like you split your GSs between settling in Athens and lightbulbing, which is an interesting move. I typically focus on lightbulbing when going for a military victory but for this game I was thinking an SE required full out settling to be competitive in the long run.

Darrell

[sooooo]

Do you feel you were in a position to win a space race?

It's difficult to say. The tech leaders were myself and Mansa, but Mansa wasn't going to win a space race with his few cities. If going for a spaceship I could have been overtaken by Asoka or Lincoln towards the end, who started slowly but had a lot of land, but it would have been close.

EDIT: Actually now I remember that Asoka was going for a culture victory (not a good idea for him really).

I typically focus on lightbulbing when going for a military victory but for this game I was thinking an SE required full out settling to be competitive in the long run.

I think I settled 4 scientists and lightbulbed 4 (1 academy too). However, the first two lightbulbs of paper and education were to get me trade bait (this failed for paper due to the bug) and to win the liberalism race (this succeeded). The last two were set off for Scientific Method because I was set on going for diplo. If I were going for space they would have been settled. After liberalism I generally favour merchants for the trade missions over scientists, so the two I got were from low odds. Merchant trade missions to a temple of artemis city are worth a lot more in beakers than a lightbulb.

[darrelljs]

Merchant trade missions to a temple of artemis city are worth a lot more in beakers than a lightbulb.

Really? I had no idea. I guess I don't know the formula for a trade mission value, my understanding was that it was based on population of the target city, and distance of the target city from your capital. It sounds like you are saying that is incidental, and that the real calculation is based on trade route value.

Darrell

[sooooo]

Really? I had no idea. I guess I don't know the formula for a trade mission value, my understanding was that it was based on population of the target city, and distance of the target city from your capital. It sounds like you are saying that is incidental, and that the real calculation is based on trade route value.

Darrell

Indeed. So sending a merhant overseas to Carthage with the ToA, Great Lighthouse and Cothon is rather nice

[VoiceOfUnreason]

my understanding was that it was based on population of the target city, and distance of the target city from your capital. It sounds like you are saying that is incidental, and that the real calculation is based on trade route value.

Well, trade route value depends on population and distance, so you weren't far off.

[blid]

Great game sooooo. I was thinking that a diplo victory with all these builders loving each other won't be easy but it seems I was wrong.

You also managed to box Mansa quite nicely there. You used the creative trait quite efficiently to get the lion share of the continent without using force

I found it funny that we both referred to the classical nationalism snapshot and we got it the same year . I lost the race to Taj Mahal though :mad: