So just for sh**s and giggles, I built the following game the other day and after playing it, I decided it might be fun to see how others could do with it and I decided to post it here.

what's the deal?

map - islands
number of large islands - extras
number of tiny islands - no tiny islands
size - standard
climate - temperate
sealevel - low
speed - normal
rivals - 3
difficulty - monarch
you are - Asoka of India

so what makes it the builder's contradiction?

No Tech Trading
Always Peace
Victory conditions enabled: Space, Diplomatic, Cultural
BUT:
Raging Barbarians

can you out-build AND out-research your 3 rivals while quite possibly getting your butt whooped early by those damn barbs?

I'll just say that I could not (although I plan to try again), plus it took me 4 tries just to live past 2000 BC.

so have at it and let me know what you think!

starting location:
http://homepage.mac.com/mrjhandel/.Pictures/gotm-sept/TBC.jpg

spoilers with early strategy for those who don't like reloading 10 times before getting going:

If you weren't already going to - research bronze working first or you WILL be wiped out by barbs before you know what happened. hunting/archery is a fools errand.

I don't recommend sending the warrior south to begin as just southwest of the forested hill you see in the screen shot is a peak, making that a dead end.

while it may seem like a food lovers paradise to found in place, the smart money is on moving southeast one square first. you'll probably thank me after bronze working.

Good setup, lateralis. It took me 5 to 10 tries to figure out how to play through the early game effectively.


My first game started fine, but I played it pretty conservative and didn't really have a plan, and when the first AI showed up with triple my score I gave up. Then I played several games refining the tactics; in all of these games something went wrong in the first 100 turns, anything from losing the first warrior to losing the first city. Final game:

early game

The plan was to get Hinduism, Judaism, the Lighthouse, and the Colossus, and go cultural. I figured the Colossus would help in the early game, and then I'd tech to Astronomy where I'd lose the Colossus but gain bonus foreign trade routes.

Settled where you suggested.
First research was Poly/Fishing/BW/Wheel/Pottery/Masonry/Monotheism/Sailing/Metal Casting/Alphabet/Literature/Drama
The first warrior went to bag the two huts to the West and Northwest, then back home. In several games I got good results from those two huts (like Masonry, or 100 gold for an axeman upgrade) but this time it was pretty weak, I think a map and experience.
I found that 3 warriors were plenty to defend the capital against warriors and archers.
First builds were approximately: warrior/warrior/workboat/worker/axeman/workboat/axeman/granary/settler/lighthouse/great lighthouse/library/axeman/forge/colossus.
Settled City #2 north by deer/seafood because it was easy to defend.
Then when I had about 5 axemen (after losing one or two) and the capital was still building wonders, I spammed scouts from city #2 while the axemen, most of whom had been in a line of 4 blocking access to the south, advanced over the south of the island. The scouts followed behind, busting fog.

middle game

After that it was pretty straightforward.

The 2 other culture cities were
1: northwest of the capital by deer/corn (not sheep) (and it didn't work the corn) In defiance of my strategy it wasn't coastal, but I couldn't find another really good coastal spot.
2. down in the south by corn/fish.

I never got any religions other than Hinduism and Judaism.

I unexpectedly built the great library from an engineer that had been auto-allocated from my forge.
I completely unexpectedly reached Liberalism first, got Nationalism, and managed to build the Taj Mahal.
I also built the Statue of Liberty (in the production city to the southwest), which also kind of surprised me, but then I did have copper.
Someone discovered Theology pretty early, and from seeing that in several "practice" games I didn't think I had much chance at the Sistine Chapel.

I stayed in Hereditary Rule and at 0% culture for a long time, I think until Democracy. Actually Democracy (for Universal Suffrage to cash-rush culture buildings) didn't seem that crucial; I didn't have that many cathedrals to build and instead had whipped a couple. But I guess it helped.

I went into no SR for a while to get the initial open borders... and adopted Pacifism late. Generally I did a very poor job of farming artists. I built the NE in Delhi, stayed in Slavery for a long time, and only ran two artists in Delhi. Didn't prioritize Globe Theater and eventually built it elsewhere. Eventually went into Caste System and ran 6 artists in Delhi, but only popped I think one (!) great artist in the entire game, plus 3 or 4 merchants (one lightbulbed Metal Casting, the others were settled in Delhi), and 6 or more scientists. I very belatedly realized that I should research Scientific Method just to obsolete the Great Library!

end game

The Industrial Era was an incredibly boring Enter fest. Things picked up around 1930 when I switched from the Biology path toward Scientific Method; a few years later Delhi reached legendary culture, and the first AI built their Apollo program, and then started building parts pretty fast. There wasn't much I could do though; I just built some late national wonders in the other 2 culture cities and kept running the 6 artists in Delhi (which is all you really have food for if you run cottages). I was sending my pitiful one artist down to City #3 when it reached legendary on its own.

Cultural victory in 2004, a Warren G. Harding.

India in 2002:
http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/5831/indiasy3.th.jpg (http://img215.imageshack.us/my.php?image=indiasy3.jpg)

glad you liked it.

description of my first run through:

I'll be honest, I didn't finish.

my goal, once surviving the early barbs, was to expand like mad, courthouse everything then get to astronomy to find another fertile ground for more expansion. I held the FP to be rushed on the new land (to the west) and once I had 4 cities up and running over there it was universities and observatories everywhere with an eye towards space race. although I did manage to get the apollo program up not too long after my neighbors, the turn after I finished I got the message that 3 gorges dam was finished. at this point I figured I was screwed.

next time I think I'll try for diplomatic.

A great looking challenge, lateralis. Thanks.

I've downloaded it and I'm going to have a go at it blind some time in the next 2 weeks. (lol. I haven't even found the time yet to have a go at The Mini-Me Challenge (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=186202) myself yet.)

I like the idea of keeping combat in the equation, but making it so it's not combat with your competitors. You've made me realise that I tend to try and win by weakening the nations of my opponents rather than on the strength of my own build. This is going to make an interesting and tough change of direction for me.

I haven't checked out Jet's strat yet, but I'm going to try the following:
- Pre-chop/whip-abuse out some early defence. (My forte)
- Build on military strength only until longbowmen.
- Then spread my attention more evenly between defence and building my research rate with a mass of cottage farms (map allowing) and a single minded tech path focused on increasing research.
- The aim being to go for a space victory. (Definitely not my forte.)

I've never tried a space victory and I've never tried raging barbarians. If I can survive until one of the other 3 rival’s gets a victory then I will call it a 'partial win'. :D

This is assuming I find the time that is.



lateralis: What does 'number of large islands - extras' mean?

Jet: I haven't read your spoiler yet as I want to give the challenge one blind attempt. But I did glance at it and I see you got a cultural victory. Congrats.

:hatsoff:

Can you post one of your latest saves, so I can have something to inspire me if I get stuck with my strat? Thanks.



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if you select "islands" in the custom game setup you have 2 other options to define:
number of large islands
number of tiny islands

the options for the first are:
random
one per player
extras (meaning there might be 7 civs but 10 islands of about the same size)
several extras (I assume around 2 per player or more)

the options for the second are:
random
no tiny islands
few tiny islands
various tiny islands
many tiny islands

Thanks.


So on that comprehensive definition I'm expecting to find:
- a world consisting of 5 or 6 reasonable sized islands,
- I'm probably going to start alone on one of those islands. That is just me and the barbies for company,
- and if I need more space I've got the choice of 3 islands that contain 1 rival civ each (or the broken remains of a civ and a load of fat barbies) OR 1 or 2 islands that contain nothing but barbie cities that are spoiling for a fight (and possibly a rival civs colony).

I assume if I go for the first expansion option I can battle with the rival civ culture-style, and attempt to flip his cities with culture-bombs.

Does any of that sound about right? :crazyeye:



(off topic:
P.S. lateralis, you'd love this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Root_of_All_Evil%3F) documentary. Try and check it out if you haven't already.)



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yeah. I've seen it ;)