Adv 45 - Sockboy cracks that whip!

[Sockboy]

Pregame:

This is a shadow game since I discussed which wonders to pick with another player (who was playing a game) whilst I had at the time no intention of playing. Later in the month I had some spare time and I'd been kicking a couple of ideas around in the back of my mind that I wanted to try out. Basically I had two ideas, both revolving around the fact that the capital had a heap of food available. Food means two things to me in civ. One, it means a Great Person farm and two it means whipping.I typically struggle to get a Great Person farm set up in my games, usually because the locations that seem best for it are also usually pretty good for commerce cities, which I typically lack. Setting one up in the capital isn't something I pursue very often as early game I like to get a couple of cottages up when I can, rather than farms. This is usually because of the happy cap in the early game being so low, that farming means I grow into unhappyness even earlier than normal. The other thing I think of when I see food is production in the form of the whip. Again this causes a few problems early game due to low happy caps. Whipping can be counter productive, anyone who's whipped their capital down to a sustainable happyness of 1 in the early game can probably agree with that So we've got a common theme here, happyness. it makes sense then to take a wonder whih lets me deal with this, and the obvous one is the Globe Theatre. I suspect this will be a very popular wonder in this game. Having picked the Globe then we can see what synergises with it. I thought about the Hagia Sophia as an interesting choice (and a wonder I've never built), but in the end decided to play around with the Kremlin instead, mostly because it's massively expensive and I rarely get to use it to much effect. Well it's going to get plenty of use here.

Ok so the basic game plan is:
a) get food
b) Get bronze working
c)
d) profit

Implications of this are that my capital is going to be pretty small for most of this game. It's also going to be running predominantly food tiles, so Bureaucracy is pretty pointless (this is probably my first high level game where I won't be running Bureaucracy at all!) I'll therefore need to get some commerce sites up pretty quickly to help me keep pace. Chances are I'll get a Great Spy early in the game which I'll need to settle, if I pop another one then I can use it on a Scotland yard, so I won't need to worry aobut espionage (not that I do usually anyway). If I get a Great Artist then I can think about using him on a Golden age once I want to change civics.

Ok so onto the start!

Here you can see my capital in all it's glory, Note the happy faces There's no unhappyness in Stockwhip!



Early builds: Workboat, workboat(interrupted), worker(whipped), workboat(completed), worker(whipped), Stonehenge(whipped), Settler, then I stopped taking notes. I'd guess granary next.

Early Tech: Bronze Working, Agriculture, Mysticism, Wheel, Pottery, Writing, Sailing, stopped taking notes.


You can see I went for stonehenge early, mostly as I like free border pops and I'd managed to just whip everything that I wanted in my capital. Also being Charismatic, makes Stonehenge even more tempting. I sent 4 chops into it and still whipped it out, was it worth it? Hard to tell. Maybe I should have focused more on settlers, but it seems like if I whipped out Stonehenge then my other cities would have one less whip needed in the early game. It did stop me getting my other cities up quite as quickly, but Economically I couldn't afford then anyway, especially not with where I wanted cities #3 and #5!

So by 1Ad things weren't looking so hot for me. I'm only up to five cities (I did have six but a barbarian uprising event took one out. I'm almost in place to replace it). As you can see from the overview I've expanded quite a long way away from my capital, hoping to reserve some space for myself.





I know the AI on high difficulty levels likes to expand faster and harder than I can manage, even with my supercharged whip. I've got an army of workers out roading me to my outer locations and I've had my meagre army fogbusting for all it's worth. I've not bothered to get Horseback Riding, probably a mistake, but I've always needed for other techs, mostly to stop my economy from stalling since I built so far away frm my centre. Critically I managed to get Currency ahead of most of the AI so I traded that around for a lot of lower tier tech and enough gold to get to Code of Laws in a reasonable length of time (5 turns, not too shabby). I was hoping that would let me trade up to parity, but Rome and France aren't having a bar of it.



Grr, I could really use Metal Casting, and Monarchy would probably be pretty handy right now too, although happyness isn't a huge problem at the moment, with quite a few calendar resources underneath all the jungle at Wall (my border city with Rameses).

Internationally Rome is a juggernaut, Caesar's up to 12(!) cities already and showing no signs of stopping. I really need more cities. Religion wise I've got Judaism and Hinduism spread to most of my cities, thanks to my good friend Rameses. He's been very diligent with his missionaries I've still not adopted either since Mansa my other neighbour is Jewish and Rameses is Hindu. I hope Manse swings around to Hinduism, that'd make me feel a whole lot safer, since my army is made of paper, actually it's really made of papyrus. I haven't invented paper yet. I am winning the ESP battle with a settled Great spy doing wonders for my espionage. I have research sight on most of my opponents for most of the game.





In 350AD Mansa Musa agreed to become a vassal of Julius Caesar, cementing Caesars position of guy with biggest stick. Later (500AD) he went to war with Louis, bringing in his lap dog Mansa Musa. I was soon asked to join in and I couldn't pass up the free diplo bonus especially with Mansa Musa between me and any stack of doom. I didn't realise it at the time but this was pretty massive in my game, slowing Mansa's tech pace at a pretty critical juncture. As Louis dug into Mansa Musa's territory whilst Rome hollowed him out from the top. I on the other hand used this time to tech Philosophy which I traded around for Machinery and Civil Service. I also used this opportunity to trigger my golden age with my long serving Great Artist, revolting into Vassalage, Hereditary Rule and Organised Religion. Hereditary rule seemed the obvious choice (since I had no other options to choose from). Bureaucracy my usual go to civic would be a bit pointless this game since I already get such a big bonus on my whips, the actual increase due to Bureaucracy would be far less than the 50% advertised, whilst with Vassalge I could actually get a few promotions on my whipped units now. Organised Religion just meant whipping infrastructure everywhere else became so much nicer, particularly with universities on the way soon. I also became Hindu as all the cool kids were doing it. Well, Rameses and Mansa were anyway and if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for me. The Golden Age let me polish off Paper and most of Education, leaving me with a wide open shot at Liberalism.





Just before teching Liberalism I traded around Education for Nationalism and a few other minor techs, taking Constitution as my free tech, I just didn't have enough of the bottom half of the tree researched to get anything interesting there (I don't have Guilds!). 1140AD saw Louis Capitulate to Rome, giving Rome a commanding score on the leaderboard, but behind technologically. He remains in this position for most of the game. 1260AD sees me revolt to Free Religion, FRee Markets and Free Speech. I'm still in slavery though At least my slaves are free to worship whomever they like, say what they like and buy whatever they want with the money I'm not paying them... Hmm, not quite sure how this all works... Anyway around now I'm starting to think about how to end them game. Culture looks doable, although I should have probably started that some time ago. I don't really have the time (or ability) to head down a military path, I've not really been playing a solid diplo game, although a few lucky random events have left me on good terms with both my neighbours. I guess I'll just tech to space. I've not done that on Immortal before, usually some wacky AI cultures before I get there (or more likely Monty/Alexander/Genghis sees me as an easy target and takes me out). I start queuing up cultural buildings in three of my cities as a back up plan, but decide to head for the stars.



By 1500AD I'm starting to be in trouble again, the AIs are really teching like crazy. Particularly Mansa Musa and Justinian. I trigger my second GA to play some catch up, revolting to Emancipation and Universal Suffrage. After nearly 5500 years of the , it's time has drawn to a close.



I've also been rushing to get some cities up on the central islands, I didn't even think there was anything there really too later. I managed to take three barb cities with some whipped knights who were just lounging around after I whipped up some galleons, but by the time I got settler up and ready, Mansa Musa and Rameses had their spare settlers building cities. Justinian got the lions share of the islands by dint of teching Astronomy first. As my GA draws to a close I need to choose whether I want to move into State Property or not. Having missed a lot of the island settlements and not having warred with the AI, I feel I don't really have a large enough land mass to make State Property necessary. Instead I decide to stay in Free Market and found Sids Sushi (making my Communism beeline a bit pointless) in 1545AD.







After that not heaps to talk about, Alexander declared on me, but just suicided a small stack of two movers into Wall. Later he accepted peace for a nominal fee. I found (like I have a few times before, but always surprises me) that running binary science and Free Speech let you leverage the Kremlin something crazy. Particularly with a corporation through your cities which seemed to make my surpluses and deficits really huge (not affecting my breakeven much though). It just meant even after a turn or two of cash saving I had piles and piles of cash which I could use to buy stuff cheap thanks to the Kremlin. I bought the Eiffel tower, Rock n Roll and The Three Gorges Dam whilst beelining Computers for the Internet and tech labs. Stupidly forgetting that The Kremlin gets obsoleted by it . By then though I'd managed to buy Tech labs in the cities that mattered. and I started progress on building the Apollo Program. My beeline for the Space Elevator hit a small snag as the city I wanted to build it in failed to meet the 30 degree requirement and I had to build it in one of my island cities.

Is there a way to check in game before it's teched whether a city can build it? I find this really annoying.

In any case to bolster my shot at winning the space race (although a recent war between Justinian and Alexander really sealed the deal there), I triggered a third and fourth golden ages with the plethora of Great Persons I'd been getting.

I revolted to Pacifism and hinduism to try and accelerate a great Engineer to get my Space Elevator up in time, but managed to pop a low percentage Great Prophet instead at Wall. So I didn't end up building the Space Elevator until 1882AD, The same year I finished all space parts and launched. Pointless. I also revolted to State Property and Bureaucracy to shave a few turns off the build time. Turning off Sids Sushi had a slightly detrimental effect on my cities Two words. Food. Deficit.





After launch I revolted back to my earlier civics and tried to tech out Future Tech, but missed it by a couple of turns. I would have teched it if it weren't for that meddling Space Ship. I'll tech Future Tech one day Space Ship victory in 1902AD. One thing I've never seen the Welcome to Alpha Centauri screen before, I guess I've never clicked on "View Spaceship" once I've won.




Post Game thoughts: This was a pretty powerful combination. It worked really well together, giving me plenty of production power in the early/mid game. Early on I had settlers and workers on hand whenever I needed them and mid-game military was also heavily whipped out. At the end of the game I could still rush things everywhere without really having to plan for it. Heading for Sids Sushi helped me leverage the Kremlin more than I had anticipated before I played. I still think the Globe Theatre is THE wonder you want to start the game with pretty much regardless of the strategy, since having no limit on happyness in one city early on is huge. My biggest issue with this setup was my mid game economy, I didn't really get my feet on the ground until about 1000AD, which is pretty late. Not having a Bureaucracy boosted capital made it a bit difficult around then for me and I got lucky with my trading I think (Having tech sight on a lot of the AI around that time also helped me choose wise techs to research). WFYABTA was a slight issue, but not as bad as it could have been (thanks Mansa Musa!).

If I was to play again, I think I might go with the Great Library/Statue of Liberty combined with the Pyramids (although this is a pretty typical style of game), and I still think Hagia Sophia would be a good choice too, mostly as I think the bonus it gives is good, but it just comes too late in the game and obsoltes quite quickly, whereas getting it from turn 0 could give you quite a boost early game since you wouldn't need as many workers and it'd last for quite a long time then. but I can't see another good wonder to link it with. I can't think of too many other wonders which seem useful but rarely built, maybe West Point since it's a difficult one to unlock and uber expensive to build. Notre Dame helps with the happies too I guess. Anyway Cheers T-Hawk for this, I'm sure I didn't make the most original choice of Wonders but it was good fun

[T-hawk]

Nice, I'm thrilled to see this report. Only two players picked Kremlin/Globe. I was really hoping we would get a full report on that combo.

Bureaucracy doesn't work like you think. Bureaucracy is *multiplicative* with the Kremlin bonus and blows its power through the roof. With both, you get 30 x 1.5 x 1.5 = 62.5 hammers per whip.

Good work with the settled Great Spy too. I'm starting to like those 12 EP more and more. Incidentally, the GP chance was tilted towards the Spy, since the Kremlin gives 2 spy GPP and Globe gives 1 artist GPP.

Instead I decide to stay in Free Market and found Sids Sushi (making my Communism beeline a bit pointless) in 1545AD.

Well, Communism beeline can also be good to build the Kremlin... oh right.

Kremlin - Uni Suffrage cash rushing is an interesting topic. It worked out spectacularly in my culture game, but for space I'm never quite sure whether it's better to spend economy on hammers or just directly into research.

Is there a way to check in game before it's teched whether a city can build it [Space Elevator]? I find this really annoying.

Not to my knowledge, and I've been tripped up by that too on occasion. But I find it mostly moot since researching Robotics doesn't actually get you to space any faster.

If you want to reach Future Tech, try Epic 24

I can't think of too many other wonders which seem useful but rarely built

Yeah, Kremlin is clearly number one in that category. West Point is a good catch too, I was hoping that would be popular (synergy with Charismatic) but maybe Immortal was too high to encourage that.

[darrelljs]

Very creative combo . I think to really leverage you should have a) gotten to Pottery faster, and b) gone off and killed your neighbors. This choice was really best used for Domination IMO . I was surprised to see Cottages in your capital, but I guess there was so much food it didn't matter. Let's see...with the Grassland tiles farmed you hit 18 food suprlus at size 7. You were at 15, so I tend to agree with you after all .

Darrell

[regoarrarr]

Nice report! I was interested to see where you "drew" your borders - you got a lot more land to your east but I had more on Mansa's side

[Sockboy]

Great to hear comments from you guys, I'd have replied sooner, but I'm learning at the moment that access to high speed internet is still a privelege rather than a right Anyway, let me respond to the comments.

Nice, I'm thrilled to see this report. Only two players picked Kremlin/Globe. I was really hoping we would get a full report on that combo.

Bureaucracy doesn't work like you think. Bureaucracy is *multiplicative* with the Kremlin bonus and blows its power through the roof. With both, you get 30 x 1.5 x 1.5 = 62.5 hammers per whip.

Yeah I was quite surprised that not too many people picked this combo. The Bureau bonus and Kremlin bonus was something I didn't think too hard on. In hindsight maybe I should have, since the Kremlin bonus is to rushing, not to production like just about every other multiplier. I guess it lowers the hammers to build as opposed to the hammers produced? On the other hand a big problem I had this game was managing the whip overflow, it looks on paper like you can whip 30 base hpt with proper food set up, but in reality you lose hammers if you whip from scratch, so you need to set up two pop whips every second turn. However the overflow causes issues with getting a consisent set up of two pop whips every second turn. I probably ended up whipping every third or fourth turn in the end, particularly after I got the Heroic Epic there. In hindsight that was probably a mistake, but I wasn't really building military anywhere else until much later once I got my Moai City up and running. I think with a bit more careful planning this could be managed pretty well, but I didn't put the time into working it out properly and just used it to whip whenever felt convenient.

Not to my knowledge, and I've been tripped up by that too on occasion. But I find it mostly moot since researching Robotics doesn't actually get you to space any faster.

Interesting, do you have numbers to back this up? I'd be interested in seeing them if you do (not that I don't believe you ). I always head down this path for Space Race but maybe I'm better off getting Genetics for the healther bonus earlier, I always seem to be hurting for health when I space race.

Very creative combo . I think to really leverage you should have a) gotten to Pottery faster, and b) gone off and killed your neighbors. This choice was really best used for Domination IMO . I was surprised to see Cottages in your capital, but I guess there was so much food it didn't matter. Let's see...with the Grassland tiles farmed you hit 18 food suprlus at size 7. You were at 15, so I tend to agree with you after all .

Yeah I probably should have got to pottery sooner, but it felt that with the two seafood and the grain developed I was already growing fast enough, and extra population just goes to making more population. I was pretty keen on getting Stonehenge, but maybe I shouldn't have bothered and maybe I should have waited a bit more on the worker to get pottery before agriculture? Not sure how I feel about that though. 2-turn 2-pop whipping settlers was really useful, although I had trouble getting my food to align properly to grow on the turn the whipping occured. Early game it certainly helped keep me on par with the local AI, although how Caesar got up to 12 cities by the time I had 6, I'm not really sure. Guess I should have whipped harder although maintenance would have hurt me pretty severly I think.

Military was probably the way to go here, but I just didn't have the time to slog through a ground campaign. One thing I didn't mention in my report was the whipping in the other cities was also helped by the Kremlin which led to a lot of them getting the necessary infra up quite quickly, I had a number of cities building research and cash as they'd run out of useful infra early on.

Nice report! I was interested to see where you "drew" your borders - you got a lot more land to your east but I had more on Mansa's side

I find I'm still struggling in getting a flow to my reports, they still read a bit like I did A then I did B then I did C. Rather than there being a narrative. I guess that comes with practice, but thanks! I'm also not really sure what other people find interesting in a report, so it's good to know that people are reading them My border to the East I had to rush to get to and it ended up squeezing Ramses quite a bit in my game, whilst Mansa was quite slow to expand. I think if I'd pushed I could have claimed another city north of the Sugars, but couldn't see a really good spot there that would help me block him off fully. Maybe near the copper and fish there (Maybe that city would have been able to build the Space Elevator)? Anyway in the end Sugarbowl endegd up being pretty good I think, it had plenty of food so I turned it into a GP farm, although once I got Sid's Sushi up and running I was popping Great People left right and centre.