on decolonization in civ iv, english paris, and other matters
A week and a half ago, France tried to re-enact the Seven Years' War in a particularly odd game of Civ 4. This even happened at around the time of the real Seven Years' War (late 1750's), right before America spawned. It was, to say the least, a bit of a shock, because France had been so damn friendly to me all along...
I was playing as a barely-clinging-on-to-the-vestiges-of-historical-victory England, and I really, really could not afford a war, especially not with France, who was only doing slightly worse than China (the top scorer).
France had too much tech and too many troops and...holy shit it was bad because they actually had a decent navy too and I could not afford an invasion of the home islands. Maintaining the huge empire I had meant my research would stagnate, and I'd be super behind in weaponry. (Hi, I'm a longbowman and I'm fighting against...isthatamachinegun? Don'tkillmeplz!)
Thus, I gave everything I had in North America to France and got Napoleon to make peace. I then proceeded to laugh when the poor fool had to deal with America spawning and taking New Haven and Baltimore with them. (Dear France and Spain, your colonial empires in North America will make the U.S. hate you, and I get to sit on the sidelines and laugh!)
I discovered later that I didn't need to be so bitter about France, because due to my generous North American gifts, France became rather enamored with me. It was a good strategy (let's buy friends with cities!) so I gave my Asian colonies away to Russia, my colonies in South Africa to America, Australia to France and South America to Germany. I kept Canada, which of course meant that America didn't like me very much, but whatever.
China (who was a republic and had somehow never discovered communism) also ended up liking me a lot, due entirely to "very fair trade relations" (oh the irony). I traded tech with them a ton; they gave me all sorts of cool tech for a much cheaper price than everyone else. I tried to gift them my colonies too, but they refused.
Due to all this awesome diplomacy, I had a lot of fun at the next World Congress. Basically in these, you get to request cities that aren't yours and other civs will vote "yes" or "no" on whether or not you get them. As it happens, only nations that're doing relatively well get invited to participate in said Congress, and all of my allies (they all had really high scores) showed up on the list.
Paris was on the list of possible cities I could request.
France would kill me, I thought, and the years of Anglo-French friendship would totally go down the toilet. And especially since I'd tried so hard to ingratiate myself...
I requested Paris anyway.
Everyone besides France and India voted "yes" and I was seriously trying to think about how to prepare for a war with my neighbor across the channel. But France didn't even get mad--they remained utterly happy with me for reasons unknown. I like to think it was because I'd gifted them with so many overseas colonies that they were too busy to care. Distract, divide and conquer!
So in this universe, they speak French in America and English in Paris.
Oh, and India almost always had a higher score than me, it was only right after I'd accomplished my second historical goal (three cities per continent) that I eclipsed them. But as soon as I started "decolonization", I dropped back down again. More ironically, China wanted me to become adopt universal suffrage, which I never did (I stuck with hereditary rule because of maintenance issues).
Fun times, fun times.
--
Recreating the British Empire on Rhye's and Fall is damn near impossible. Augh, stability, where are you? D:
I think I read somewhere that England had to get communism, make spies, and steal money from Mali and France in order to maintain an empire. Someone else said that keeping America was key, and I'm guessing the only way to do this is to create New York and D.C. yourself, remove all your troops from them right before America spawns and then invade?
I do wonder if not creating any cities in American territory before 1775 will make it so that they don't spawn at all. ;D
--
I probably won't talk about anything particularly personal here, just random, non-identifiable things. If you know me in real life, you'll probably recognize pretty quickly that it's me, but that's fine.
I was playing as a barely-clinging-on-to-the-vestiges-of-historical-victory England, and I really, really could not afford a war, especially not with France, who was only doing slightly worse than China (the top scorer).
France had too much tech and too many troops and...holy shit it was bad because they actually had a decent navy too and I could not afford an invasion of the home islands. Maintaining the huge empire I had meant my research would stagnate, and I'd be super behind in weaponry. (Hi, I'm a longbowman and I'm fighting against...isthatamachinegun? Don'tkillmeplz!)
Thus, I gave everything I had in North America to France and got Napoleon to make peace. I then proceeded to laugh when the poor fool had to deal with America spawning and taking New Haven and Baltimore with them. (Dear France and Spain, your colonial empires in North America will make the U.S. hate you, and I get to sit on the sidelines and laugh!)
I discovered later that I didn't need to be so bitter about France, because due to my generous North American gifts, France became rather enamored with me. It was a good strategy (let's buy friends with cities!) so I gave my Asian colonies away to Russia, my colonies in South Africa to America, Australia to France and South America to Germany. I kept Canada, which of course meant that America didn't like me very much, but whatever.
China (who was a republic and had somehow never discovered communism) also ended up liking me a lot, due entirely to "very fair trade relations" (oh the irony). I traded tech with them a ton; they gave me all sorts of cool tech for a much cheaper price than everyone else. I tried to gift them my colonies too, but they refused.
Due to all this awesome diplomacy, I had a lot of fun at the next World Congress. Basically in these, you get to request cities that aren't yours and other civs will vote "yes" or "no" on whether or not you get them. As it happens, only nations that're doing relatively well get invited to participate in said Congress, and all of my allies (they all had really high scores) showed up on the list.
Paris was on the list of possible cities I could request.
France would kill me, I thought, and the years of Anglo-French friendship would totally go down the toilet. And especially since I'd tried so hard to ingratiate myself...
I requested Paris anyway.
Everyone besides France and India voted "yes" and I was seriously trying to think about how to prepare for a war with my neighbor across the channel. But France didn't even get mad--they remained utterly happy with me for reasons unknown. I like to think it was because I'd gifted them with so many overseas colonies that they were too busy to care. Distract, divide and conquer!
So in this universe, they speak French in America and English in Paris.
Oh, and India almost always had a higher score than me, it was only right after I'd accomplished my second historical goal (three cities per continent) that I eclipsed them. But as soon as I started "decolonization", I dropped back down again. More ironically, China wanted me to become adopt universal suffrage, which I never did (I stuck with hereditary rule because of maintenance issues).
Fun times, fun times.
--
Recreating the British Empire on Rhye's and Fall is damn near impossible. Augh, stability, where are you? D:
I think I read somewhere that England had to get communism, make spies, and steal money from Mali and France in order to maintain an empire. Someone else said that keeping America was key, and I'm guessing the only way to do this is to create New York and D.C. yourself, remove all your troops from them right before America spawns and then invade?
I do wonder if not creating any cities in American territory before 1775 will make it so that they don't spawn at all. ;D
--
I probably won't talk about anything particularly personal here, just random, non-identifiable things. If you know me in real life, you'll probably recognize pretty quickly that it's me, but that's fine.