Texas Hold'em Open thread

[akots]

Ok, finished. AIs were behaving but I was afraid again of a possibility of Apostolic Palace victory but it did not happen.

Here is the situation at the end.



Since my spoiler ends after defeating Matrix, I'll try to sum it up from the beginning. Here is the starting situation:



As you can see, I am purple Rome and starting at the east end of a huge continent spanning for ages to the west. The continent is shared with Matrix, Casey (AI-ed quite early in the game) and Robo. All others start on their own land masses but BCLG is quite remote and can be reached only after Optics unless he builds a city specifically to expand culture and even then would not have helped, not sure.

Well, in any case, I've launched an early workboat to cruise around and actually got circumnavigation eventually. I've had a more or less fair idea on the map specifics and it deemed necessary to expand as early and as rapidly as possible because happiness would be a huge limitation for grown and hence the desire to grab lands and resources. Also, I was seriously offended by the fact that I play Rome and have no iron. So, matrix had to be eliminated.

Here is how it started:



It was a relatively short was with Elephants facing archers and a few axemen. Matrix was not very powerful despite having very nice lands which he did not even settle. That was a very powerful acquisition and required considerable time to digest especially with AI-KC and Robboo not in a big hurry to settle down which gave me ample room to expand. So, I've started to consolidate and this took about a thousand years or even longer.



Barbu was encroaching from the north but it was not a major threat since he appeared to put a lot of effort into wonders and religions and same was true for IanDC who collected almost everything in London. Barbu though was more balanced spreading it out between 3-4 cities already keeping in mind a possibility of cultural victory, no doubt. So, the only real threat could have come from the east and south and I've made mauer a very nice offer of peace and alliance. He agreed and this untied my hands to prepare for a war with barbu and defense against possible viking invasions. At about that time BCLG conquered Robboo and was seriously encroaching on the west. So, I had to spend some effort into building up the power to discourage him from attacking. other wars were too far away and IanDC was very focused on wonder fever building everything again in London.

Also IanDC built Apostolic Palace and had Christianity (or some other) as a voting religion. Everyone had it, but I had only in a handful of cities and did not bother to spread it. Barbu had quite a lot of christians and voted for Ian on Diplo victories all the time. it was quite close but I lucked out and it did not go through thanks to mauer. In the end I had to pay something like 50 gpt to ynnek to buy his votes which was a fair price IMO. Mauer, BCLG-AI, and ynnek got whatever spare resources I had and I even traded wine for sugar with IanDC.

So, after much thinking and weighting the chances, and since BCLG AI-ed himself, I thought that Barbu was about 35-40 turns from cultural victory and I needed more to win by Space race. Choice here was limited and after long preparation, war was declared. Barbu did not learn much military techs, I had frigates against galleys and caravels and cavalry-cannons+infantry against muskets and riflemen. The war was over quire rapidly, there was little resistance.

Here is situation at the starting point of the war:



Continued in the next post.

[akots]

Next one, continued from previous post.

And here is how it ended:



Mauer was a very trustworthy ally and had harassed barbu with a horde of privateers forcing him to learn Astronomy instead of Steel and to build frigates instead of cannons.

At this point, I still continued to expand while all others stopped for some reason. So, Rome grew large and powerful with huge production and specialist-based economy. I think I've built 2 or 3 cottages for the whole game which forced me to stay in Caste System, State Property (due to peculiar dimensions of the central piece of land the distance was really huge in terms of maintenance costs), and Representation. Other civics were not that important but I stayed in Bureaucracy because Rome has Oxford and later on Academy which game me a nice boost for science. I was comfortably able to run the slider from 60-70% and this added with specialists and production of science is 2/3 of the cities allowed me to quite out-tech IanDC by the end of the game.

Here is situation in the end:



This is the score plot and mfg and food was similar with culture being lead by Ian and barbu most of the time.



Here are the top five cities. As you can see, Rome is not in the list. The only wonder I was able to grab was Colossus early in the game. I tried a couple of times but never actually managed anything, even in the modern era except Hollywood and Eiffel Tower. Not sure I needed either one of the those.



Continued in the next post due to attachment limit of only 5 files.

[akots]

Continued from above.

This sums it up. It lasted 5897 hours and 30 minutes which is almost 246 days of the game running. That is quite a lot of time.



The final score is not very big but it is not important.



Just wanted to say many thanks for mauer for hosting this long game, allowing me to live and protecting my behind from the most dangerous direction and for everyone who played for a good game!

I've uploaded 2 files as one zip archive at CFR PBEM server: saves for 1892 (one turn before the victory) and 1894 (right after the victory). My password is qqq.

Here is the link. http://pbem.civfanatics.ru/sav/img/texasPB.zip

[mauer]

So essentially, THE game event was Matrix sucking butt in your war? Who's gonna believe that ?

We love you Matrix

[akots]

I think yes, that early war were a game-breaker. It was fast (IIRC less than 20 turns) and gave me uncontested access to the western areas with nice lands and lots of food and resources.

[Robi D]

Matrix sucks butt at war, i should take a note of this for my cut the crap game

Well done akots, you definately made the right move and won the game. I don't know why no one else bother with expanding, for me it was a case of not having anyway to expand too, along with my start being slightly sub-prime.

[BCLG100]

I think them pictures prove that i had by far the worst land to start with in the entire game.

congrats on the win akots and thanks mauer for hosting whilst i was involved.

[mauer]

Originally Posted by Robi D

Matrix sucks butt at war, i should take a note of this for my cut the crap game

Well done akots, you definately made the right move and won the game. I don't know why no one else bother with expanding, for me it was a case of not having anyway to expand too, along with my start being slightly sub-prime.

I didn't expand cause it was too much trouble. Production was slow, beakers were low. So I figured I'd just ride the "I'm the host so don't kill me" wave until the game was over

[akots]

Originally Posted by mauer

I didn't expand cause it was too much trouble. Production was slow, beakers were low. So I figured I'd just ride the "I'm the host so don't kill me" wave until the game was over

Well, actually there were some good islands up north from your start, it was a very decent land with copper and uranium, and a river. The wine island also could have been settled by you, I waited for eternity and then grabbed a northern tip of it but still there were left a lot there. Those cities would have been completely safe. It seems you just gave up after hard start.

IMO, Communism and State Property actually completely solve the upkeep problem and even without those, it is tolerable on this type of map with considerable income just from trade routes. Every city starts as a base with 6-8 income from basic 3 foreign trade routes.

With regards to Robi's start, I think, I would have gone all way out a war against Japan to see who can survive. With some chopping and slaving, a formidable army could be created quite early. But I understand your hesitation. The capital city was good and had nice research and some wonder potential, so you decided to let it grow and not go to complete total war. Well, if I did not go to war with matrix, I would also have been stuck with 6 cities and nowhere much else to go. Under ordinary circumstances, allying and good relationship with neighbor are fundamental for survival but if the lands are so limited, it basically confines you to 3-4 cities with no way out. Also, it could have been possible to build two cities instead of one on the starting piece of tundra oasis you were given. Otherwise, quite a few tiles were partially wasted. However, one city would be only a half of the city, the other half occupied with icy terrain. Still, it would give some extra food for slaving and a few hammer here and there. The capital won't be that powerful on the other hand. Well, I guess one cannot have both.

So, IMO, BCLG's were the worst of all but he actually managed some quick escape and that was very well played. Unfortunately, connection was not there, and BCLG pointed out, so it was very hard to secure treaties and advance in techs. No tech discount and no foreign trade routes for half of the game is a very tough situation.

[Robi D]

I guess i could have tried an all out war but i was really desparte to find a decent site for another city, also i had the russians to worry about. The biggest thing was my complete lack of production, it was only in the last 50 odd turns that i had built up a few decent cities that could build things at a decent rate.

I felt the best bet was to move quietly early on and pick up some pieces here and there and it worked to a degree. Its just you and ian did a lot better then everyone, otherwise it was pretty even in the pack