I basically spent 6 months of my life documenting PB5, and most of that was spent going back and reworking the micro needed. And I didn't even scratch the surface of SPI in that game.
You could give your sanity chasing perfection with SPI.
And this is why I love the Spiritual trait in Civ4: It rewards planning, patience, time commitment, and ability with the game more than any other trait at the high end, but the simple baseline for a smaller time commitment and lower level planning is still fun and effective. It's not strong when played at a lower level - not up there with the power traits, the way it can be when played to the hilt - but it still adds a whole new layer to the gameplay, and can help recover from misplays as well. I think JR4 mentioned it early on in this thread as a trait that he liked, and considering the field we were up against, I figured that if between the two of us we didn't have the wherewithal to make Spi play with the top traits, we weren't going to win this no matter what traits we chose. Spi let us play this however we wanted, and if we'd been in a stronger (map) position and/or if we'd read the metagame better, we could have pulled a lot more out of the trait, especially if our position remained strong as the game continued.
As it was, it mostly just gave us the flexibility to do and try different things with our civ, and we still did pretty well for ourselves without leveraging it very hard or burning more hours on it than we wanted to spend on the game. As it turned out, we were never going to beat GJ-neighboring-Ventessel-tilted-by-Krill, least of all starting between him and dtay-neighboring-CML-crippled-by-Coeurva, no matter how much we squeezed out of Spi, but the thing about Spiritual is that instead of just making your civ stronger in a predictable way that loses its luster when victory is out of reach, it lets you just have fun with it, play with different civics, and (especially as a newer player) learn more about it - and about the game - as you go.
Then if some really strong players show up in your thread after the game to talk about the strengths and uses of the trait too, all the better!
Okay, unless people specifically request the rest of what I've written on it, I'll let this story stand in for the whole Eternal War that characterized the remainder of our game, and add the conclusion when I get a chance:
The Battle of Vulcania
Aeriel, Vulcanian Cartographer Wrote:We saw the ships on the horizon from the slopes of Mount Gemmaker: Four sails in all, bearing down from the western point of Radnashiri Isle in close formation. We had seen their merchant ships before: Slow and tentative as might be expected with sailors raised among herdsfolk, plying the waters between the isles of Randashiri and Oljei Baajii, only ever seen from afar. They never yet had approached within hail, and there was a certain coldness already between our peoples that I gathered arose from some ancient slight: Supposedly when their Khatun first suggested to our Shaka that we unite our knowledge of the world with theirs, the mighty Shaka - knowing our own travels and were for more extensive than our provincial sea neighbors' - declared he would make no such exchange unless he received in payment some eighty barrels of Radnashiri gold.
The tale is something more than myth, or it is a myth with power: We still are forbidden to tell the Khatunate people such tales as we know of the islands and seas that by now they surely know for themselves. Yet even if it matters not at all, I think all of us who know, throughout the city of Vulcania, will die before we tell.
They were not merchant vessels, as we were too well aware. Upon the wind that bore our swiftest messenger ships, we had heard the news of the war with the Carthaginians and Immortals, and we knew what those sails portended: I almost fancied I could smell the horseflesh of their famed Keshiks, the riders of the sunset, ready to leap from their decks onto our shores. Like vultures, they had come to feast upon us in our weakness even as we struggled against our nearer foe - but we had our mighty city walls from which to rain down death upon the enemy below. We had Helmar's spears to hold them off, trained in the mainland barracks to do battle with any foe, backed by every man and woman who knew how to hold a bow. We were proud, and well-defended - or so we told ourselves. If only we knew then what we now know.
We met them with no illusions. Though many of us shaped our lives in accordance with the wisdom of Confucius, the great teacher of their city of Oljei Baajii close by our shores, we knew those ships bore to us no brothers or sisters of the faith. A single galley might carry a peaceful emissary of Muqa's Buddhist teachings, but not to us: The coldness between our peoples forbade such freedom of exchange as existed between the Khatunate and our Carthaginian enemies. One galley too might carry laborers like those still hard at work in the game forests of Radnashiri - but we saw not one galley, but four sails bearing straight for our waters, and among them a ship built wholly for war, riding low in the water, and fitted with a ram driven by the strength of triple banks of oarsmen - fully ninety men on either side: A floating weapon such as even our greatest shipwrights could not match upon the seas. And as they entered our territorial waters, scattering our fisherfolk, another cry went up from the watchtowers: A fifth sail had been sighted, triple-banked and fitted for ramming like the lead ship in their fleet, entering the straits between the gold fields of Radnashiri and the rice paddies on our distant mainland and the Isle of Mist.
They sailed out of the sunset, through the straits of Oljei Baajii, to the feet of Mount Gemmaker where the waves crash against the cliffs. They sailed fearless to our very shores, and as the enemy rose from their ships with the light of the sunset behind them, Helmar's spears and arrows hurtled down upon them from the walls, to pierce vulnerable horse-flesh and crush the riders beneath their mounts as they tried to make landfall from their ships. There were sounds of men dying as they came to the beach, but no horses' whinnies of fear, and far from carrying a few men and their huge and nervous horses, each of the three transport ships were filled to brimming with fighting men alone.
Arrows rained upon their shields, and they tumbled to their doom - half the crew of their lead galley died before the first could climb the walls - and Helmar's doughty spearmen gave their lives, even to Helmar's own, to force them back to their ship, back from our homes, but then Helmar was gone, and our archers' arrows spent, and I could smell the iron of their blood drawn by the iron of Khatunate swords, and then the second galley came up, and the third, bearing fresh troops armed with Borte bronze and archers of their own, and our defenses crumbled. Even with the walls torn down, and even with the resistance of our people and the hunters and miners who lived across the east of the isle, the forces of the Khatunate could not be denied, and could not be dislodged. Their warships commanded the seas, and their troops commanded our streets, and command them still. We fought bravely, but in the end, we had no answer for their numbers, three-banked ships, and iron swords.
It is said that Izabyella Khatun's first offer of peace to our great Shaka following the conquest of our city demanded eighty barrels of gold - the same amount that the Shaka of myth had demanded of the mythic Khatun. I know he did not accept, but I also know that peace was indeed concluded eventually, and the Khatunate's dominion over our city accepted by the people of Might and Magic as simple fact. The Carthaginians still hound our borders, and word has reached us here of late that the Emerald Island itself has fallen to them - a far mightier stronghold than our little outpost on seas surrounded by Khatunate islands.
Other vultures are circling besides - if the people of Izabyella can even be numbered among them; with open commerce now between us and the Khatunate at large, I have read works from Radnashiri talking of slow-developing plans to invade us to create defense in depth for their rich isle - works dating long before my lifetime, and decades before the Carthaginians joined in what I fear may yet become a feeding frenzy. These hands that once drew maps for our great Shaka himself shall never do the like for the Khatunate, for with the people of my city, I still resist their rule - but I am old, as are all who remember the fall of our walls and the might of Helmar. Already the children and youth of our fair city know no ships of Might and Magic, but only the traders and patrols of the Khatunate, and they seem not to see why our Confucian faith cannot allow us to live in harmony with the people of Oljei Baajii and Radnashiri as it once did with the people of Tularean Forest and Mist.
This is not the end of our Vulcanian heritate; of this I am sure: With support from Tularean Forest, we may one day quietly reclaim the old watchpost on the slopes of Mount Gemmaker - and the hunters and miners of the east could well hold out for centuries, with the strength of their own unique cultures and trade with the isle of Mist. Even the name of our city remains the same, and perhaps shall ever remain so. But I grow old, as do we all. Within a decade, I might be gone. A few more, and no one will be left alive who witnessed the terrible battle. Even in its time, I fear that when we called it so, the other peoples of the world laughed: The Zulu - they who according to our people's lore began the wars upon Might and Magic when they conquered the isle of Wildabar more than three centuries ago - since making their separate peace with us have been embroiled in another war that puts to shame our little battle and all the others in the history of our world.
The tides of their war in Russia, ebbing and flowing year to year, always breaking deeper into Russian territory, have washed away more lives in over a century of fighting than ever existed upon Vulcania Island, and the war seems poised to carry on for hundreds of years more: It can hardly end except with the total destruction of Russian civilization. More wars are sure to start and end around the world, each perhaps more bloody than the last, and our descendents may count themselves lucky to live in so peaceful a pocket of civilization as this one. A thousand years hence, there may be no one left alive who can even remember resistance to Khatunate rule anywhere upon this isle.
Image credits:
Map of Cron: Art by Jim Krogel
Mylo the Mapmaker: Screenshot by Thuryl of the Let's Play Archive
War galleys: From the Perseus Digital Library, Tufts University
Raiding longships: Art by Cindy "Highland Heart" of zazzle.com
Mongol beachhead invasion: art by Richard Hook
Siege: Art by chuanzhong of deviantart.com
Emerald Island: Screenshot by TwoLines of giantbomb.com
Confucian Priest: Photo courtesy of PBS Learning Media
Charging Knights: Painting by Mariusz Kozik
I really appreciate the analysis on the SPI trait. I haven`t read your PB 5 thread, Krill. It looks like the images are broken, sadly so not sure if I`ll get to it at all. It sure sounds like a massive amount of work. If it`s still possible to improve on that kind of microing, that`s a testament to the depth of Civ 4. It`s still a solid game, more than 10 years after the release.
@RefSteel: Let`s hope the descendants of Aeriel of Vulcania decided to switch allegiance to the rightful leader, Isabella Khatun.
On a non-civ related note, I just got a new job! So, I`m gonna be.. a bureaucrat. Producing a wall of text every day - hey, that sounds like a job for me!
(January 25th, 2018, 15:04)JR4 Wrote: On a non-civ related note, I just got a new job! So, I`m gonna be.. a bureaucrat. Producing a wall of text every day - hey, that sounds like a job for me!
Hey, congratulations! I hope you enjoy it, and also that it models civ4 and gives you a +50% bonus to production and commerce in your capital!
(January 13th, 2018, 16:17)JR4 Wrote: If you have the time to write up more stories, I`m happy to read. What kind of ending will there be?
Only one kind of ending is possible, really! I'll finish writing it tomorrow, but when I post it depends on whether I wait to find illustrations.
Apparently "when I post it" will be more than a month later, thanks in large part to my role in the mapmaking process for PB38. Nevertheless, so belatedly that it's possible no one is reading anymore: The only possible...
CONCLUSION
The Khatunate battle captain cleared his throat, looking out across the cattle fields. Here was a place like the land of his heritage: Pasturelands like Borte's back at home - but his men hailed not from Borte. Leading oxen yoked to carts bearing their heavy Maxim guns, they marched across the grazing land and didn't look twice at the cattle nearby. They were fisherfolk trained in servicing their weapons and taking every advantage of the folds and slopes of Nighon's hills, unused to the open fields of the isthmus, and though they marched gamely, the captain frowned. "We'll make it through," he told himself. "Or we'll sell our lives dear at least. The Buddha will watch over us, I know."
Avarman the Suryturk paces his grand reception hall, his hands nervous, his face distraught. "I am punished," he cries, "for my failures against the Shaka! Even the demon Gav'Agai deserts me! He calls my war a disaster only because I lost a million of our soldiers' lives in a single battle in which I failed to make any lasting gains! He says that all is lost and would gladly let some other spirit take over as my guide - and who would take his place? All is lost, even as he says! My people are doomed!"
Among the carts and between them marched soldiers in fancy dress, challenging one another with smirks and feints and laughter, prepared to die at any moment not because of any terrible and immersive training regimen but because their armament, by its very nature, was unstable and explosive and dangerous: Ideal for indirect fire against riflemen in entrenched positions, but equally prone to simply go off in their hands. They juggled and played tag among the carts, cheerful and playful because the somberness and mourning would be for the survivors in some future they would never see, to commemorate the brave or foolish men who passed away; there was no reason to shorten their lives' pleasures any more than a grenade's ill-timed premature explosion already could. One day, descendants of their weapons would be built with any number of safety measures, like "pins" and "spoons," but the only pins the Khatunate grenadiers knew were the shiny ones affixed to their uniforms, and their only spoons the ones they used to shovel their stew.
Tearing his hair, looking to the sky, Avarman pleads, "Can no one hear me? Shall I never be free?" But someone hears.
Rank on rank of armored Knights, long-trained in the gers of Borte, Muqa, Nambui, and Bulugan, paraded through the city of Nighon, grooming their horses, testing their swords, inspecting their bullet-turning armor, enjoying the music of the city: Triumphant notes from brass bands, their instruments forged from Junggin Khatun copper, mined by and large by those of Nighon's own citizens who had sought better livings in the mines. The Knights looked eastward, beyond the high sea-cliffs to Harmondale, to whose gates they would be riding soon.
The Shaka of Might and Magic shouts defiance to the skies, shaking his fists - and his rifle - at the northern border. On the field before him lie the corpses of uncounted Turkic invaders and nearly as many of his own soldiers, their bones turning the grasslands white. "Never shall we fall while we have our Might and our Magic! Never shall our Heroes fail us! The dark savant himself may be ready for lasting peace, but until that day of peace shall come, we shall fight, and we shall live! For even in the face of three mightier empires, I proclaim that should succour come soon enough, we may yet survive!" And his voice is heard.
In the port of Fountain Head, on the Mardobiusc Sea, four Galleons waited at berth, their decks crammed with cannons, fresh Maxim guns, and yet more and more troops and explosives: Grenadiers, gunners, and artillerists ready once more to sail east, where still more warships waited, ready. The boards creaked as the ships shifted on the harbor waves, as troops sang and played music and swapped increasingly improbable stories of their exploits on the shore. Gunners polished the barrels of their machine guns and cannons until they gleamed, and smiled at each other over the sheen, waiting for word - waiting for the signal to make sail.
Tokugawa surveys his empire from the height of Gobwin Knob, his thoughts upon the troubles of another world: The troubles of the being - spirit or demon can hardly even yet be known - called d'tay. He smiles slightly as he sees the troops mustering in his capital, turning his thoughts for a moment to the distant land where his forces are poised to help overrun the people of Might and Magic, but soon enough his thoughts return to the otherworld. "It has gone on too long," he tells himself regretfully. "I - even I - can put them through this no more. With the distractions of another world that stole d'tay's time from me in critical moments, with the spreading shadow of the Immortal peoples ... I must end this now if ever it may end." So he speaks - and so he is heard.
Two Galleons more, gathered in Mist Harbor, loaded to the gunwales with their own share of men, horses, Maxim guns, and cannons, preceded yet another still at anchor in the bay just off the island's seaward coast, in company with one of the Khatunate's iron-shod warships, always circling, keeping watch. All were prepared, to the last soldier and sailor and coal-feeder, to sail or to steam southeast, to the head of the pastured isthmus that separated Nighon and Harmondale, there to put the troops ashore, seeking to make landfall with overwhelming force. A sailor looked nervously after a cloud of dust descending from Nighon. "We're telegraphin' our attack," he muttered under his breath, and, "I hope those poor souls are okay," but when chastised, he made no defense and wouldn't repeat what he had said.
Glaring out from a hilltop, her chin upon her fist, her elbow resting upon her knee, Boudica the Ornery dismisses the presence beside her whom she doesn't even see. "It's over," she pronounces firmly. "Even Krill Gamefinder himself can't match the Immortal empire. There's no stopping Churchill now. It's over." And her voice is heard indeed.
The sun rose over the castle walls of Harmondale, overlooking the towns below. Heroes of Might and Magic paced them stolidly, awaiting the onslaught to come, hoping for succour from the east lest they be crushed between the forces of the west and south. Rifle barrels gleamed in the morning light; grenadiers juggled deadly bombs or played with fire; a lonely Oromo warrior, with his musket, showed off his perfectly-drilled precision fire to the ranks of peasant longbowmen. And they looked to the west and saw the Khatunate machine guns rolling out, and they looked to the east and tried to squint against the sun to see if someone would come to their aid, or if orders would come demanding that they charge out against the enemy. They barely could hear their neighbors speak over the constant roll of thunder from the Khatunate warship in the bay, still hammering the city with long-range cannon fire as it and others like it had done for years, but there was something different in the air: The Maxim guns were moving. The battle was at hand, and unless something happened to end it, blood would flow around Harmondale as it had done at Mist - or as it had at Castle Ironfist on an unthinkably larger scale.
Izabyella Khatun sits in the lotus position, a beatific smile upon her face, communing with the spirits of the Buddha and the Tribe of Mardoc Earthshaper. She laughs with pleasure at the stories of the Spirit of Overplanning, nods at the pearls of wisdom, rare but treasured, dropped by the Spirit of Keeping Us Sane, and holds always to the guiding hand of the Spirit of Patience and Deep Strategies. The world is bright and beautiful to her, as it has always been. She does not speak, but were she told, she would give voice to her now-silent assent.
Knights strapped on their gauntlets, hoisted themselves into their saddles, flexed the hinged joints of their armor, drew their swords. Across the isthmus, young conscripts glanced nervously up for approval at the professional riflemen garrisoning the walls. Axles slowly creaked as huge carts mounting Khatunate machine guns rolled and grenadiers cast sparks from their flint igniters on both sides. Bosuns whistled, sailors cried, anchors lifted, and massed troops manned galleon rails between rows on rows of gleaming cannons, as soldiers massed in the streets of Harmondale.
There came a trumpet call.
From on high, out of the morning sun, descended Nowhere Bold-Goer, wise and trusted elder of legendary Mardoc's clan. Behind him strode the holy spirit Darrell Deeplurker, the ancient consort to Krill Gamefinder, in support of Nowhere's words. The spirit Nowhere held up his hands, palms outward, to the sky, and spoke in a voice heard all across the world: "The battle of the spirits upon the face of the world is decided, and Churchill, the Lion of the Immortals, shall hereafter rule over all in peace. The being called Jo-Ee, though he hail from the nether realms of the Germans themselves, has walked and Recorded his Mortal Journey, and achieved for all of this world who follow his servant Churchill the gift of Immortality - so let us join him in celebration of this day! So deems the Council of the Spirits! Heed us, one and all!"
Izabyella Khatun laughed with joy and congratulated Shaka on his people's survival - inexplicable even in his own eyes. The leaders of the world joined in raucous celebration and praise for the genius of Churchill and the prowess of his Immortal people, and the hand of peace was offered by all the holy spirits and their servants to all the world's peoples. "The true golden age of the world has come," intoned Nowhere Bold-Goer. "And now, aware of the greatness yet to come, you may all put aside your weapons, and need never fight each other more."
The Knights and the riflemen, the grenadiers and Oromo warriors, the machine gunners and cannoneers and sailors and the Might and Magic militiamen armed with random bits and orts all exchanged looks with one another. "Wait," said a veteran Khatunate Knight commander, a descendant in direct line from Kabul Ach Khüü Khan. Looking out across the isthmus at the people of Harmondale, who joined their appalled voices, with the other Khatunate troops', to his own, he demanded, "Not fight each other???"
As the stars came out over the blood-drenched battlefield, the Eternal Empress and the Shaka of Might and Magic smiled and shook their heads. "What can you do?" asked Izabyella, looking over her fallen with a motherly smile.
Shaka nodded, grinning around at his own fallen. "Boys will be boys."
---
Several days later, returning from some lengthy and important business on the floor of a local tavern, Winston Churchill, the Lion of the Immortals, blinked in the light of daylight and the noise of celebrations all around. "What." He glared around at the factories standing idle across State of Yue, at the coal plants from which no smoke issued, at the steam-forge from which came no ringing but the sound of holiday bells. Exasperated, Churchill growled, "What is going on here? We've got a world to conquer! Why is nobody out here doing their jobs?"
His chief advisor hurried up to him to whisper a few words, and Churchill squinted to hear over his pounding headache. He frowned. "I've what now? You say I've won? I've conquered the world already?" He paused. A small smile formed on his lips, and then grew large. He laughed, and danced a step or two, and then with a whoop, he demanded, "You idiots! How come nobody told me?"
It was Nowhere Bold-Goer who claimed the deeply spiritual honor of the holy facepalm.
Image credits:
Machine Gun cart: From the Kiddle Encyclopedia online
10th-12th century hand grenades and caltrops: Photo by Badseed of wikipedia.org, from the National Historical Museum, Athens, Greece
Mongol knights: Painting by Sun Lixin, from the National Museum of China
Mongol fleet: Illustration by Richard Hook
Sailing Ships in Formation: Illustration by Geoff Hunt
Oromo warriors: Wood-engraved print from the Illustrated London Times, 1867
Angel with literally a trombone, apparently much to the confusion of other angels: Detail from a painting by Guido Reni, 1609
General slaughter and mayhem: Painting by Artur Orlionov
Winston Churchill: Photo courtesy of the archives of the Press Portrait Service
That`s a fitting end to the game. The Eternal Empress was surely delighted with founding 5 religions and having another 3 civs adopt Buddhism as the state religion.
The battle for Harmondale would have been a bloody one. After the game ended, I logged into Joey`s civ and he had a scout unit in Ethiopian lands. It turns out that there were plenty of Ethiopian units in Castle Ironfist still, so if Dark Savant had decided to hit our stack he probably could have made it a stalemate. Still, those 4 Machine Guns would have made an attack very costly indeed. In PB 37 we built a massive amount of Knights (and Catapults) that were very effective in bringing down high-promo Oromos. I`m sure Gavagai regrets not building enough collateral/Knights.
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It's not like PB38 has really gotten anywhere yet.