Adv 38 - LiPing

[LiPing]

(I tried putting the report up in multiple parts, I stuck together multiple screenshots to try and make big maps at various points, and I think they may cause the screen to scroll, so I am trying to isolate them into sections with little/no text to make it easier to read. I can see it all at 1024x768 resolution without scrolling, so I am hoping it successfully worked )

Okay, so we’re only allowed to build Farms (on flatland). We’re limited to 2 units per city and the idea this time is to get Diplomatic votes. Unfortunately I am more of a “Your head would look good at the end of a pole” kind of girl in relation to diplomacy, so I am going to begin with the expectation that I am going to do very badly.

My aim therefore, shall be to produce a report which is more detailed, and less haphazard than the last one.


4000BC

My first thought was to move the Settler onto the Hill E, SE, as the current site looks like it will be a fairly hard site to build anything at. I move the Warrior SW, revealing another Pigs. Hmm. Since I can now see two usable food sources, and only flatland, and attempting to move the Settler east will lose both of them, I decide to just plant the city on the spot.



Okay, so it’s going to be a bit production poor. It does have the Forested Fur, so it has some help with commerce, and there are three pigs, which help, since I can build the infrastructure via worker/settler overflow, as there’s not really any practical way I can whip too much out of this capital.

Plan is Hunting -> Animal Husbandry -> Pottery -> Writing, so I can improve the pigs, the furs, get a Library out and run some Scientists.
City is going to go Worker -> Scout.

Warrior heads SW, planning to double back NE to the capital to act as military police by the time it grows large enough. He picks up Mysticism out of a hut, finds a fairly large looking desert, and an area which is almost exclusively hills. This looks like a very good site for later, as I can cottage all the hills and move the capital to make proper use of Bureaucracy.

Scout is finished and heads slightly east, then far south-east. I begin a Granary to let the Capital grow, and start on Mining. At the maximum current happy size, it looks like this:



So, this calls for a little management planning. This is how I plan to build infrastructure in the capital, as it develops, it works out at roughly the same speed as trying to build it directly, while putting out workers/settlers, turning the excess unusable food into production.




And then I turn around and do something very stupid.

Interlude

“Say, remember what Olodune said about the Catapult?”
“Yes?”
“Well, since the Catapult is almighty, and we need something to inspire our citizens and scare off our enemies…”
“…I don’t like where this is going.”
“And since we can’t get many farmers to take up arms… Let’s build… A REALLY BIG STONE CATAPULT!”
“That’s really not practical. And it’ll never be able to fire anyway.”
“… Oh. Well, how about we build a really big pointed stone platform instead?”
“I suppose that’s better, but…”
“And then, we can put a Catapult on top of it.” :catapult:
“… *Sigh*… *mumble* How are you intending to construct it anyway…”

*Started Masonry research, delaying Iron Working, with ALL the jungle around and no clear land to put another city.* (Well done, me)

Basically, despite doing the Micro planning just before, I think that I’m going to get 20 overflow, per turn, and can finish the Pyramid in 25 turns, so I planned to just let the Capital build it that way on Worker/Settler overflow, while settling cities in the relatively clear areas that have food (and horses) SE, and SW of the capital.



A bad event, I pay to keep the forest using hut gold.

In the meantime, the Scout finds the very big mountain range that runs for a very long distance East to West. He also picks up Mathematics from a hut.

At this point, the first Settler (and Masonry) are completed, and I catch the mistake, that it would actually take -100- turns to build this way, which is in reality no improvement than trying to build it using the mine and the forest fur, and way too slow. I am not quite willing to let go of the big catapult launching platform plan yet, perhaps everyone is as badly choked by jungle as me, so after checking with Sullla about the legality of mining the rice-hill to the east, I decide to instead plant the second city 5 squares East of the capital, where it is going to pop out a monument and a granary while Iron Working comes in, then sit there and work the four hills (occasionally a farm), plus the two elephants, and try to get it out that way.

I whipped out the Capital’s Library and had it run scientists to speed up Iron Working, and used the great scientist for an Academy.

Researched Alphabet to Backfill…

Turn 78:
Animal Husbandry – Archery (Hammurabi)
Mathematics – Polytheism + Fishing (Willem van Oranje)

Turn 79:
Iron Working + Writing – Meditation + Sailing (Peter)
Writing + Fishing – Monotheism (Hammurabi)

Turn 84:
Monotheism – Priesthood (Peter)

Researched Calendar to make use of all the Bananas, next came Code of Laws and Currency.

[LiPing]

Turn 100



A brief overview of what I can see at this point. The Great Wall, Oracle, Stonehenge are out by this point.



Here is a slightly haphazard dot map that I made at the time, ranking in importance, Green > Blue > Yellow > Orange. I badly want the Green sites, the western one is almost entirely hills so I want to move the capital there later, the eastern one has a good number of hills (and the dyes) and will be a good production site.

Also, my apologies to the Ottoman people, I went through and renamed all the cities, and started giving the new ones funny names, I was beginning to have trouble remembering where they all were and what they had or did.

[LiPing]

On turn 102, there was a war declaration. I had a grand total of two Warriors between four cities at this point, but it happened to be Peter declaring on Victoria. He captured one city fairly quickly, and then nothing significant happened after that, both asked me to declare on the other, and I refused, but the war continued for a very long time without any significant fighting.

Turn 110:
Meditation – 30 Gold (Cyrus)
Mathematics – 20 Gold (Victoria)
Mathematics – 50 Gold (Peter)
Alphabet + Mathematics – Monarchy + 30 Gold (Hammurabi)
Monotheism – 10 Gold (Ragnar)

Great Lighthouse was built on turn 113, 3 turns before the Catapult Platform finishes...

Turn 114:
Mathematics – 20 Gold (Ragnar)
Priesthood – 10 Gold (Cyrus)



And… got it. Revolted to Representation/Organized Religion, and Judaism, since Hammurabi had been the most generous with missionaries, and he also happens to be one of the immediate neighbours, so if he is happy, he won’t declare. My limited understanding is that AI’s will be less willing to declare if there is no direct boundary, so I should be able to get away with the horrible military for a while. Hammurabi and Victoria/Peter are the only direct neighbours currently, and two of them are otherwise occupied.

I apologise, although I planned differently, I became quite sloppy taking notes after this, I felt like the interesting bit was probably finished and started coasting through.

Since it was successfully built, I feel that I do not actually need Caste System, I want to keep Slavery to develop all the cities. I feel it doesn’t significantly matter what kind of specialist is being hired, they're all providing +3 beakers from this point, and I can build the required buildings for enough Scientist/Merchant slots, as I can’t get distracted by building military anyway.

Turn 116:
Polytheism – 20 Gold (Cyrus)

Turn 123:
Monotheism – 30 Gold (Cyrus)

Turn 124:
Nothing – 40 Gold (Hammurabi)

Turn 129:
Monarchy – 10 Gold (Victoria)
Monarchy – 40 Gold (Peter)
Monarchy – 30 Gold (Ragnar)
Alphabet – 30 Gold (Cyrus)



Settled forwards to get the sites I wanted, and to seal off the eastern area.

Turn 136:
Calendar + Code of Laws – Construction + 40 Gold (Peter)

Turn 137:
Currency – Asthetics + 20 Gold (Peter)

Turn 140:
Code of Laws – 30 Gold (Victoria)
Code of Laws – 10 Gold (Cyrus)
Code of Laws – 40 Gold (Hammurabi)

I realise that a lot of the trades I make look rather horribly one-sided. I’m doing them in spite of this primarily because I remember from long ago playing with Better AI in debug mode, the AIs tended to sell each other techs in similarly one-sided fashion, so assuming that the behaviour is the same or similar, I figure I might as well get whatever I can before they do it, and get some +diplo at the same time. I am also certain I can out-research them all from this point.



“It’s a sign… a giant Elephant, to go with the Giant Catapult.”



Copper popped (and the Music great Artist, settled in South Gap to (gradually) pinch the bananas)

Turn 146:
Literature – 50 Gold (Peter)
Literature – 170 Gold (Willem van Oranje)
Literature – 60 Gold (Ragnar)
Literature – 30 Gold (Hammurabi)

Turn 152:
Music – Horseback Riding + 20 Gold (Peter)
Metal Casting – Nothing (Cyrus request)
Nothing – 40 Gold (Cyrus)

Turn 153:

Ragnar declares war on Hammurabi, and captures a city soon after. My defense is reasonably credible now, I have a few longbows plus a spear and axe in each of the front line cities.

Literature – 30 Gold (Victoria)
Music – 100 Gold (Willem van Oranje)
Horseback Riding – 80 Gold (Ragnar)

Turn 161 – Paper in.
Map – 40 Gold (Ragnar)
Map – 20 Gold (Peter)
Map – 35 Gold (Cyrus)
Map – 15 Gold (Hammurabi)
90 Gold – Map (Cyrus)
Horseback Riding – 130 Gold (Cyrus)

Turn 164:
Literature – 110 Gold (Cyrus)

Turn 165:
Map – 20 Gold (Hammurabi)

Turn 166:
Cancel Deals with Ragnar – Nothing (Hammurabi request)

Turn 169:
Theology – Drama + Map + 20 Gold (Peter)

Turn 175:


I built this manually at Dyeland, I want it for two reasons, firstly it’ll help with getting some buildings up, secondly I can use it to engineer a war for mutual military struggle relation bonus. I didn’t realise that “You voted for us” did not last very long, so I erroneously voted for Hammurabi as the resident, also assuming that he’d use it to get his city back from Ragnar, instead he kept coming up with horrible ideas like “Stop trading with Cyrus”.

Turn 180:
Feudalism + Philosophy – Engineering + 70 Gold (Cyrus)
Nothing – 100 Gold (Peter)
Drama – 30 Gold + Map (Victoria)

Turn 186:
Paper – Compass + 120 Gold (Peter)
Civil Service – 60 Gold (Cyrus)

Turn 188:
Declare War on Ragnar – Nothing (Hammurabi Request, Declined)

Turn 189:
Music – 140 Gold (Cyrus)

Turn 191:
Compass – 90 Gold (Ragnar)

Turn 200:
Compass – 50 Gold (Hammurabi)
Music – 50 Gold (Ragnar)
Compass – 50 Gold (Cyrus)
Banking – 480 Gold (Willem van Oranje)

[LiPing]

AD 1400 (Turn 200)

[LiPing]

I think the game is decided by this point. I made sure that everyone had a Jewish city (although, Ragnar’s gotten one by taking it off Hammurabi), I will get to Infantry, replace all my units, declare on Ragnar, since he is fairly big, hates me and is far away from Cyrus’s army, so the fighting is likely to go on for a while; Recapture the Jewish city, and use the AP to make everyone declare on him for mutual war bonus. Later, I will build United Nations in a bad city using Great Engineers, give it to Victoria, who is the smallest and unlikely to vote for me anyway, and collect the votes of the other three AIs.

I stopped keeping track of the trades also.



Hammurabi finally came up with the right idea, after losing another city…





Some events come up that help diplomacy with the civilizations who I can likely get to friendly.



Assembly Line in, Capital Hill finished Taj Mahal this turn with Mausoleum built previously.



15 Turns later, after a bit of a military buildup, (Infantry and Trebuchets), disposing of the out of date troops, apart from a Mace (Great General to be attached to it later to make a city raider unit) and the Catapult, and after moving the first lot towards Ragnar’s Jewish City, I begin the war.



No, that’s not in the plan.



Jewish City captured…



And the diplomatic situation is like this currently.



Cereal Mill Built… (Wall Street went here too)





Too bad, Ragnar…





More helpful events. I also changed to Caste System/Pacifism from Slavery/Organized Religion briefly to get a better mix of GPs out to prepare Golden Ages to come. I started losing tiles to Global Warming also (I have no idea how that feature works), a total of 3 by the end of the game.



I planted this otherwise useless city on the border between myself and Victoria, and use two Engineers to build United Nations. I made a mistake here, I thought the deadline was 1915 AD instead of 1925 AD and timed it wrongly, I had to stick with finishing at 1915 because otherwise another election would delay the vote and I would lose points to going overtime.

Well, that aside. Ragnar is being killed off, I have enough great people to run Golden Ages just about to the end, (depending on how some of the GP turn out), and all I have to do is windmill over all the hills, grow the cities, build everything that isn’t already built that improves health, and research as many Future Tech levels as I can, so I change civics to Representation/Nationhood (for cost reduction mainly)/Emancipation/Environmentalism/Free Religion. Globe and National Park were built together at Worker Dispatch, it had the most food available, so I opted to group them and let it grow to the maximum possible.



I use the U.N. to put through stuff like +1 trade route, open markets, no nukes… Peter declared on Victoria and started taking cities, so I started gifting her a handful of Infantry at UN Land, trying to avoid closing borders on him if possible, since I wasn’t sure if the + would go away instantly, and I definitely didn’t want her losing the city…



Diplomacy is all set.



And that’s it. (1503 votes)

Oh, yeah, one other thing, because it was mentioned in the game thread that it wasn’t possible to vote yourself for a Diplomatic Victory if you had over 60% of the population, I’d been doing things like giving Ragnar’s old cities to Hammurabi, and spreading Cereal Mills to him, to keep myself below that and encourage him to grow population, but when I called for a test vote that I abstained on to see if the vote would fall how I thought it would, with ~61.3% of the population, voting for myself was still a valid option. I suspect the cutoff is actually slightly higher (around ~62%, or what you would need to vote yourself in alone), so I think it handicapped the score a little. The AI wasn’t good at keeping high pop gifted cities high pop (~30 pop cities dropped back to 17-18 ), I should have just kept them longer and handed them over just before the vote. Well… nevermind.

[LiPing]

[Ruff_Hi]

thanks for the report. Building the UN and gifting the city to Lizzie - too funny. I cannot believe the size of some of your cities - very big!

[Swiss Pauli]

Nicely milking

[sooooo]

Haha, well played . Have you considered becoming a milkmaid?

[scooter]

Nicely done . I laughed at the size 49 capital, and to think I was happy with getting it almost to 40 .