The Great DoC UHV v 1.12 challenge

Well done with the Khmer Chep ; I'm sure the date can still be improved though.

Anyway here's my first try with the Khans on normal speed :
- Mongolia (600 AD, no SVN)
- Paragon / Normal
- score : 16880
- date : 1495 AD

The new Mongol UP is absolutely awesome ! No more sacrificing tons of Keshik to end up failing in China.
The Khan led 3 major campaigns :
1. In China, where 4 cities were conquered and 2 razed.
2. In Russia, which was completely conquered.
3. In the Middle East, where the Arabian camels were no match for the horde.
Conquering all of Russia slowed down the third campaign, but I still went as far as Jerusalem and Makkah.
The only research was for drama (and I'm not really sure it's necessary anymore with the culture conversion on conquest). I founded 3 cities in the northern steppes and had more than 13% in the end, finishing with the razing of a Polish and a few independant cities (formerly Arabian). I never went below shaky iirc.

Id:
Version: SVN 792
Scenario: 600AD
Civilisation: Japan
Difficulty: Monarch
Gamespeed: Normal
Score (normalised): 3635 Elthered the Unready

Victory info:
Type: Historical
Virtual victory date: -
Link: -
Actual victory date: 1986AD
Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/687xvbj0gnghwo2/Oda Nobunaga AD-1986 Turn 466.CivBeyondSwordSave?dl=0

Strategy:
With only word, Japan strategy is balance. Every game is different and needs different approach but in any case you have to balance many things like:
*Weaken China so that it isn't a threat, but strong enough to fight Mongols for you.
*Expand to increase research output and catch the deadline, but not to much to become unstable and the maintainance unsubstainable.

Personally I prefer to conquer Korea ASAP and south China (including the chinese holy city). By 1850 you should have discovered the appropriate civics and be in industrial era to support the conquests.

I have small score, because I stopped in the required area. After I entered the modern era I could conquer more lands, like India, Mongolia and Tibet to gain extra score.

The french threat:
The french revolution under Napoleon was too successful. France conquered Netherlands, Spain, vassalised Portugal, vassalised Prussia, vassalised Poland, Italy, the Balkans, Luisiana (the whole area!), Mexico, South America (half Brazil conquered, half vassalised, half Argentina conquered, half vassalised), India (whole subcontinent was under direct french control, Sumatra was under its vassal Portugal), Tibet, Gobi desert, Mongolia and central and south africa through Portugal!

French almost won a domination victory. Fortunately they collapsed just one turn before my victory. I believe if they hadn't collapsed, they would win a domination victory in some years, they lacked only one percentage point in land and population.

Could you post a screenshot of this uber-France?

cudfather said:

Could you post a screenshot of this uber-France?

Click to expand...

I posted it in the OMG thread.

Thank you! The OP was updated to post #30. JustAnotherNerd replaced Rackham for Portugal 600 AD Paragon/Normal.

Id:
Version: SVN 792
Scenario: 3000BC
Civilisation: Vikings
Difficulty: Monarch
Gamespeed: Normal
Score (normalised): 15495 Augustus Caesar

Victory info:
Type: Historical
Virtual victory date: -
Link: -
Actual victory date: 1390AD
Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/d4ft76oufmk6vxb/Ragnar AD-1390 Turn 260 Victory.CivBeyondSwordSave?dl=0

Strategy:
At last! An Augustus Caesar score and be first in score after a long time. Before beginning the game you have to plan the city placement in Scandinavia. If you place your cities in the right positions, you will have a very productive and populous core. Malmo (on bronze) was my capital and settler farmer. Aarus instead of Kopenhagen, better for the ships when English enemy triremes chase your ships.

Mediterrenean:
Send your starting melle units with two galleys in mediterrenean. If possible destroy any city western of Rome. Use the free battles against barbs to gain swordmen XP if needed. Usually I am able to conquer Italy, and Greece if Byzantium didn't spawn. Mediterreanean cities have access to iron and ancient wonders giving a great boost to your game. The cores I controlled in 1050AD was Italy and Greece.

Reaching America:
My third city was on northest Ireland and build pagan temple ASAP. On BFC, settle Reykjavik (southest westest Iceland). On BFC you can settle Vinland. In SVN792 cape tiles are placed wrong, so you can go to conquer Maya, Aztecs and Incas and take the 3000 gold from them. I decided not to do it, so that the game is versionproof.

Blundering:
I noticed the best way to aquire the gold is capturing cities. Destroying improvement can help too, but their main use is gaining XP (from defenders who try to kill you) and destroying vital enemy resources. If you fail to capture Italy or Greece early, then conquering England is a good alternative for 1st goal. Conquer England, northern Poland and France and you should be done. In my game I conquered south Italy, Greece, (arab controlled) Egypt, northern Poland, England and Britagne.

Yeah, the Khmer date can easily be improved, I didnt use my GPs in order to see if the UHV was winnable even without getting a GE (which had a 45-50% chance) or a 2nd GA (70% chance) and it cost me maybe 3-4 turns. Plus it was my first try with that civ.

Nice work with the Mongols, however it was in vain, since you took as long as I did but got a worse score:

Chep said:

Mongols, Paragon / Normal, Victory 1485 (600AD-Start), Score: 18166, SVN 787

Click to expand...

anyway, I got this one to show:

Turkey, Paragon/Normal, Victory 1799, Virtual: 1754, (600AD-start), Score: 11745
edit: SVN 793



This was the hardest UHV to win so far. You really need to get a great start and lucky throughout, could have been a really fun one if it weren't for that insane luck-dependence.
UHV1 should be easy, if you manage to instantly take Constantinople (I dont see a way to win without conquering the city before your cities flip), UHV3 is manageable if you win UHV2, but that UHV2 is annoying. There are some stupid tiles that you need which you can either get by using a GA or declaring war on 1-2 more civs.
The UP does help a bit, but at the same time it means that you have a lot of negative domestic stability from it

Chep said:

Nice work with the Mongols, however it was in vain, since you took as long as I did but got a worse score:

Click to expand...

That's weird. I know the OP isn't up to date so I make a thread search before posting victories, but didn't find your post searching for "Mongol"; Anyway I'm not surprised to be already beat, since my Mongol game was far from optimal.

If I can trust the search engine, I just beat the current Rome UHV finish date by 2 turns (although on lower difficulty) :
- Rome (3000 BC, no SVN)
- Regent / Normal
- score : 24862
- date : 590 AD

I'm really sorry for the not-up-to-dateness of the OP. I'll update it as soon as I'll get some free time after beta testing History Rewritten 1.22.

What is History Rewritten?

A mod. (Which, IIRC, provided a lot of inspiration to Leoreth)

well, here we go again:

Tibet, Paragon/Normal, Victory: 1440 (600AD-scenario), Score: 8202, SVN 793



Tibet is relatively unaffected by the difficulty setting, making it one of the "easiest" to win on Paragon - if you can win it on lower difficulty settings. (reducing the speed to epic/marathon makes it incredibly easy, but we wouldn't do that )

1. Move your starting units away, Settler+Archers 2W, Kampas towards the Indian holy city.
2. Barbarian Lhasa will flip to you, giving you a 3rd Kampa (however you have no buildings in this city, not even a Palace!), send him towards Pagan.
By now 3 barb swordsmen spawn in your core, attack them (you have 2 free wins) and hope the third one dies before he can kill both of your archers.
3. Conquer Pataliputra (Gong....the indian holy city), found the 2nd city in your core as pictured above (it can work 2 floodplains, giving you more corepop and another city for UHV1), Pagan, Delhi and Lahore (the one on the marble) also need to be conquered. Send 1 of your warriors to the tile without culture in your core, I think this prevents any more barbs from spawning there. (you can also found more cities in your core but I think it is a waste of hammers)
4. Switch to Fanatism upon conquest of Pagan. Yes, Scholasticism is nice but 25% more missionaries makes up for building monasteries and I think it even gives you better stability.
5. build 1 warrior followed by a worker/monastery in your cities, then basically only build missionaries.
6. send as many missionaries westwards before 1050 (seljuks), your goal are the Iberian, French and Skandinavian cities. (you will be able to reach the Byzantine, Russian and German cities in time after the Mongols open the way again).
7. set research to Engineering, we don't really need any techs for this game but Engineering gives your missionaries 50% more move speed making it the best option (you can buy Alphabet from Korea and we dont have time for the Borobodur anyway).
8. Befriend the Mongols & Mughals (I stopped my research and used spy points to convert the Mughals, reducing the risk of a declaration of war)

I think these things are important:
-you have 2 main routes to deliver missionaries west:
a) via the silk route (north of your core, the area that will eventually become Mongolian)
b) via Persia/Mesopotamia (south of your core, west from your Indian cities)

use b) as much as possible since the Seljuks will block it.
a) is often blocked by barbarians owning Kashgar, I sent my Kampas there after conquering the 3 Indian cities, send all your workers here to create a road into Russia as soon as the vital improvements in your area have been finished.

- you can "farm" the indies in India for workers, however this is risky as you dont want to lose your option to send missionaries through Persia.

- protect your missionaries on their travel through Russia, the barb horse archers will otherwise kill quite a few of them.

ID
Version: SVN 801
Scenario: 3000 BC
Civilization: Tamils
Difficulty: Regent
Gamespeed: Epic
Victory: 1035 AD
Score: 7152


The Tamils are fun, but really easy. All the goals are doable far before their date. Definitely one I'll probably come back and do on a harder difficulty.

Strategy -
1. Settle Capital on the spot and settle 2nd settler on Sri Lanka iron.
2. Trade for Mathematics and Alphabet (with India or Persia) and beeline currency. Whip Sangams, Harbors, and Granaries in the 2 cities. Then start building catapults and swordsmen. Set an artist specialist in Anuradhapura, but not in Tanjapuri. Find the nearby civs and get lots of friends/open borders.
3. Once you get currency set research to 0%, whip a market in Tanjapuri, and go to war with India. Set 2 merchants in Tanjapuri.
4. Capture the 3 Indian cities in the Deccan. AI India is pretty expansionist so they should have 3 at this point. If you use 3-4 swordsmen, your elephant, and 4 catapults per city you should be fine. Make peace once you capture the last city.
5. After you get your great artist settle him in Mumbai (culture bombs Somnath, you get access to the flood plains). After you get your merchant send him to Parsa or Varnasi. This completes the first UHV.
6. Get 4 galleys and an army to fit all of them. Wait until you can declare war on the Indonesians, then take their 3 cities. This completes the 2nd UHV.
7. Go for another great merchant in Anuradhapura. Trade for techs with gold. Don't declare war on anyone, you'll be behind in tech now. Once you get your merchant, send him to Varanasi. You win!

Scenario: 3000 BC
Civilization: Korea
Difficulty: Paragon
Gamespeed: Normal
Victory: AD 1370
Score: 10300



Research Literature-Music-Civil Service-Paper-Printing Press and get Alphabet, Monotheism, Metal Casting, Machinery, Theology by trade.

Get 1 Great Scientist to build Academy, and 1 Great Merchant for Civil Service.

China MUST collapse at least 1 time. Burn Simiyan hoton to restrain China. If China doesn't collapse, spreading buddism in China would be helpful.

Destroy Japanese ships after making enough trireme.

Scenario: 3000 BC
Civilization: Rome
Difficulty: Paragon
Gamespeed: Marathon
Victory: AD 321
Score: 106639
Version: 1.12 no SVN

Greece had built the Great Lighthouse in Rhegium Julii and declared war after the flip. And the Temple of Artemis was built in Jerusalem, so it was practically a perfect start

Aelia Capitolina gave me three GPs: Augustinus found home in Pisae, Marcus Crassus studied Code of Laws and Aurelius Ambrosius studied Theology.

Research order: Currency - Code of Laws - Construction - Machinery - Theology - Civil Service

Id:
Version: SVN 792
Scenario: 600AD
Civilisation: Arabia
Difficulty: Monarch
Gamespeed: Normal
Score (normalised): 23427 Augustus Caesar

Victory info:
Type: Historical
Virtual victory date: -
Link: -
Actual victory date: 1490AD
Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/vdqlciig6f6yup1/Saladin AD-1490 Turn 279.CivBeyondSwordSave?dl=0

Screenshot:


Strategy:
Acomplishing the first two goals means you have to conquer solely the required land in 1300AD. Build spiral minaret, university of Sankhore and islamic monastery in every city (temple is for free).
Make sure to have open borders with ottomans. Keep Byzantium alive and join the war against them, when ottomans spawn. If they declare war on you destroy them.
After 1300AD train only camel archers and conquer India and continental Europe. Don't let Ottomans and Mughals to conquer them for you, they will spread islam, but previous religions will stay. Conquering Europe and especially Spain, Portugal, France and maybe England is vital, to avoid non islamic colonies. Try to win the UHV as soon as possible, every event in the future (colonisation, iranians, dutch, conquerors, prussians) is against you.

In this game France was really agressive, it even declared war against me!!! It trained many pikes and built walls and castles in all cities! Fortunately, HRE opened its borders and I surprised them in Paris. This movement was vital, else they would discover muskets (don't try to win a musket behind 100% fortifications).
This game was difficult for me in some other aspects too. Odds were against me, less than 70% concluded in loss of the unit in most cases. While in most of my arabian games I won at conquering half Russia, in this game I needed to start conquering Siberia! I managed to win the UHV just one turn before the complete collapse of my treasury. However, I have to admit stability was never a problem, I finished solid!

P.S: Play it in Varietas Delectat and the music mod. The middle eastern music is awsome.

What an impressive doom's day Europe. Did Christianity even survive?

Visard said:

Scenario: 3000 BC
Civilization: Rome
Difficulty: Paragon
Gamespeed: Marathon
Victory: AD 321
Score: 106639
Version: 1.12 no SVN

Click to expand...

The first screeny really captures general historical situation on the planet -- Rome, Parthians, Hun, Axum. Well Mauryas are a little late. What year is it on Marathon?

Id:
Version: SVN 792
Scenario: 600AD
Civilisation: Tibet
Difficulty: Monarch
Gamespeed: Normal
Score (normalised): 4560 Warren G. Harding
Victory info:
Type: Historical
Virtual victory date: -
Link: -
Actual victory date: 1485AD
Link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqghsyigf...1485 Turn 278 Victory.CivBeyondSwordSave?dl=0

Strategy:
Conquer Pataliputra ASAP, then Pagan. Swirching to mercanaries can help. Khampa is a really powerfull UU and can conquer chinese cities easily. You can even collapse them in one turn if you have enough army, but I don't think is a good idea because of Mongols.
Buddhism would be at 20%, so you need 10%. A city of pop above 10 equalles little less than 1%, so you need at least 10 big cities. You can find them in Europe and a couple in India. Note than Arabia and Mughals don't let buddhism to spread in their lands.
You have plenty of time and a lot of priest slots in Gron Kyer Me Tong to accomplish the 3rd goal.

You can exploit the barbarian spawn of Lhasa. But I'm not sure if it will remain for long in later SVNs.