COTM 15 Final Spoiler

To Address both questions.
The extreme unhappiness happened about 300 years before the nuking began so it wasn't an issue. Also about drafting, it was my capital city so it never belonged to an AI, I never popped rushed and I had luxuries at 100%.

The only thing I can think of was that I spent about 40 or so turns in war under Republic with my luxury rate high to compensate. But this still doesn't explain why the other city was fine (free from unhapiness) nor why the citizens said "hell no we won't draft" since I never drafted.

Oh well, anyone got any other ideas??


Oh yeah, the AI did nuke the wrong city when they started, they nuked my 2nd city about 4 times more often than my capital. Even when it was down to a size 1 it was hit 3 times.

7Losses said:

Also about drafting, it was my capital city so it never belonged to an AI, I never popped rushed and I had luxuries at 100%.

Oh well, anyone got any other ideas??

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I don't think you read Gyathaar's post carefully enough. The AI can draft in one of their cities. If you then capture this city and abandon it, all the draft unhappiness will transfer to your nearest city, in this case apparently your capital. Then when you abandoned your capital it again transferred to your closest city. Clearly they had done quite a bit of drafting to make your lone citizen unhappy with 8 lux, but this also means it takes half an eternity before the unhappiness fades.

I entered the industrial age in 720 AD despite the fact that I was going for early domination. This was probably a waste of money, but I wanted an insurance policy in case somebody discovered nationalism. At this point I had double-crossed the Arabs to keep them from getting out of hand, at the same time that I was launching an invasion of the island of Japan. Sumeria had been crippled after joining China in the previous war, and Japan was doint the ‘Monarch Crumble’, running out of troopps with which to resist my invasion. The only wild card was Persia, who had gotten steam power as their free tech and were working on Nationalism.



Both fronts of the war went acceptably, though the Japanese front did stall for a while due to a nasty culture flip and lack of troops. The only other event of note was a Jihad the Persians decided to wage against the Sunni heretics in Arabia.



About 20-25 muskets, crusaders, and knights made their way slowly through my territory, only to find that Arabia no longer existed by the time they got there. Frustrated, they took out their anger on poor Sumeraia. Once Sumeria was down to two cities, I declared and grabbed the last two cities, putting me over the domination limit in 940 AD, for a rare (for me at least) pre-1000 win.

Looking back at my game, I realize that I’m the only one to post a domination spoiler in the IA thread. I tried to resist, but through various circumstances I found myself getting there anyway. I failed to forment early wars and traded lots of tech, which doubtless accelerated the AI pace. On the other hand, once I got MT, steam power isn’t too far away, and the railroads did manage to be useful by the end of the game. I could have conquered the world with elephants, but that would have been a bit difficult if I was going up against muskets on hills. In nay case, I’m slowly learning to think like a warmonger. I’m proud to say that I built no universities whatsoever. On to GOTM 46 and the Aztecs…

Gato Loco, you are not the only one with post-MA domination.
I started my wars with Elephantes and started with Lan and get on counterclockwise.
China had build SoZ, so I got even a few AC.
Against Persia, Sumeria and Arabia I allied all others to prevent them dogpiling.
That game felt easy somehow.
I was researching Nationalism when I finsihed in 1000 AD, Arabia was overrun by Cavs.
I should have stopped researching after Chiv and I should have build Horseman in AA and conquered 1 already then.
Got my highest Jason score with 9989 points.

EDIT: I think I should mention that I had 2 cities on the Japanese island, 1 of them flipped and the other one (on incense) was abandoned when Japan declared war.

socralynnek said:

Gato Loco, you are not the only one with post-MA domination.
I started my wars with Elephantes and started with Lan and get on counterclockwise.
China had build SoZ, so I got even a few AC.
Against Persia, Sumeria and Arabia I allied all others to prevent them dogpiling.
That game felt easy somehow.
I was researching Nationalism when I finsihed in 1000 AD, Arabia was overrun by Cavs.
I should have stopped researching after Chiv and I should have build Horseman in AA and conquered 1 already then.
Got my highest Jason score with 9989 points.

EDIT: I think I should mention that I had 2 cities on the Japanese island, 1 of them flipped and the other one (on incense) was abandoned when Japan declared war.

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Congratulations on beating my score by a few hundred points. Do you really think that elephants would have gotten the job done? In my book, the extra movement point does more to speed up conquest than the money saved by not going for MT. You're right about the game being easy. Monarch-level enemies can't produce enough to sustain an extended war, so if they don't dogpile you, they're eventually toast.

Middle Ages

Killing two birds with one war

In 660 we decide to get in on the carving of China and declare war. We also take Vikramansingapura at this time. In 680 we finally get our first leader. The Chinese get lucky next turn and take Chittagong--I'm surprised they didn't raze it. We take it back and Ramanathapuram as well, eliminating Vijay. Sumeria signed an embargo with Vijay against us--that didn't last long. In 710 we learn national. Unfortunately, so did Persia and Sumer. Start researching medicine. Cav army gets its first win at this time. In 730 we trade national to Laos for wine, art, 21 + 28/turn. Next turn the Persians sign Laos into the war. We take Nanking and China is down to a city on Japan. Plenty of vacant land is available.

Over there
We learn med in 780, trading it for steam, WM, 58 + 64/turn. We have coal just inside our border near Madras, another near Chitradurga.
Next turn, Delhi builds Smith. Silly Chinese come by sea to drop off...a longbow! Oh I'm scared! Build Patna in 800. Road coal next turn, start railing. Sumeria demonstrates a penchant for signing embargos with doomed countries against us in 820. Lucknow is built the following turn, and we destroy the Chinese in 840, getting a second leader.

A Passage to Luangphrabang
We learn industry in 850 and start building factories. Pune is founded the following turn. Our trade deal with Laos expires in 930 and we declare war on them, taking Nakhon Phanon and Wat Pra Keo. We also learn electric at this time. In 950 an army takes Muang Vangviang with 1hp left. Trade around in 980, electric to Sumeria for corp, 71 + 125/turn. Electric to Persia for spy + 51. Next turn we sign MPP with Persia for 100 + 3/turn while taking Pakxe. In 1000 we learn replaceables. Jaipur is sitting on rubber, and there's more where we're going. The following turn Sumeria sneak-attacked Karachi and is repulsed. Our treasury is hurt, though. Persia declares on Sumeria. We also take Champassak. In 1030 Bombay builds the Epic, while we take Udon Thani in the back of beyond. We conquer Luangphrabang in 1080, while Delhi finishes Suffrage and starts Darwin, having learned Sci Meth.

Saved by Technology
We attack Bad-tibira, activating Sumer's MPP with Japan. No worries. I bribe Arabia to join the war against Sumeria. In 1120 we take Erech, as our arty are getting a workout. Bad-Tibira was razed by Persia. Other army take Muang Ponh-Hong on Sri Lanka and that's all for Laos. Persia makes peace with Sumeria the next turn while we take Zabalam. We build Agra in 1140 and Bhopal in 1150. Bhopal is built specifically to be an Ironworks city. We have also taken Isin. We trade Persia wine for 360 + 2/turn. We learn refining in 1170 and turn off research, as we get Darwin in 1200. We trade Persia sci meth for commie, WM, 1265 + 2/turn. Our only source of oil is on island with Vikramansingapura, so we rush a harbor. Of course we pick up Atomics and Electronics with Hoover.

Peace thru Strength
Erech flips back to Sumeria in 1230. I had connected a rubber near Erech so they have infantry now. Build Srinagar to claim oil on northern coast. Take Erech back. We raze Ur in 1250, since it is such a huge culture monster. The Arabs have helped us out by taking Agade and Kisurra, but have made peace. We trade Persia dyes for 50 + 23/turn. Our military is weak, so I do a draft in our larger cities--I don't trust Persia. We learn steel in 1260. Next turn we build Darjeeling near ruins of Ur. In 1280 we found Tiruchchirappalli in an uncovered area. Sumer conquered, they have Sistine and Newton. It flips 2 turns later, but we only lose and infantry. We take it back and Kish, wiping out Sumeria in 1295. And then there were 4.

A Knife in the Back
We learn combust in 1300 and build Multan the next turn, and on the following Delhi completes Hoover. Persians stab us in 1315--taking 5 cities: Srinagar, Lucknow, Patna, Darjeeling, Sumer. They razed Rawalpindi. At this point I realize that domination is out the window, but I can win diplomatically. Arabia and Japan sign up as allies for tech. I gift Kish to Arabia as I can't defend it. Agra is liberated in 1325. Shantung, a formerly Chinese city taken by Persia and later completely surrounded by my territory, is razed in 1330 at the same time Bombay builds the Academy. We take Chinan in 1335, liberate Patna in 1340, and take Hangchow the following turn. We raze Canton in 1350 while the Agency is built in Delhi. We also learn flight, start motors around this time.

Perfect Timing
Bombay is switched to palace to prepare for the UN. In 1360 we raze Tientsin, while building Columbo on Sri Lanka. Unfortunately our army was redlined, and thereafter killed. Next We build Dibrugarb in land vacated by the razing of Canton and Tientsin. After some back-and-forth, we take Lucknow back for good in 1380, razing Shanghai in 1390. Delhi builds Wall Street in 1410, while we burn Lagash, trying to cut off their oil. We take Istakhr the following turn, nestled in the gem mountains near the Caspian sea. We also get another leader.

Modern Man
We learn motors in 1420, start fission. 10 turns for fission, 11 turns for the palace. Excellent! Quetta is built on the ruins of Lagash. Jinjan is fought over the following years, going into Persian and Arab hands, back to Persia, before finally falling to us. Darjeeling, which had been razed by Persia, is rebuilt. The tank army starts rollin' and take Sardis in 1440. Xinjian is razed in 1450 and Mandalay is built the following turn. We take Hamadan in 1465. Learn fission in 1470, get the UN in 1475, while rebuilding Rawalpindi.

Final Notes
4404 Firaxis, 7471 Jason--far and away my highest ever. I wish I hadn't seen Kuningas' jaw-dropping 13K effort though, getting a culture win in 850. For the record, we had 2 unconnected sources of uranium. This game had the fastest tech pace I've seen yet. However, once we went to world war, everyone else was in fascism and their tech pace slowed to a crawl. This game was also odd in that NO ONE researched Sanitation.

added two pics below. First is after the stab, the second is after the win.

Upon seeing the first screenshot of the lush terrain, I could not pass up the idea of pursuing my first 20K attempt in a XOTM. Upon reading the spoiler, I gather that there were many others who felt the same. Also, I see that some achieved victory dates of 1555 and 1605AD! Wow! I am in awe of those games well-played! Although those overwhelmingly fast 20K finishes do give me a bit of embarrassment, I will still present to you the details of my game. One dilemma that I had in this game was having to sell off a lot of culture so as not to trigger 100K!

I founded the capital east of the start position on the second turn, and as quickly as I could, I got a settler out to found the 20K city of Bombay, which settled one tile west of the start position. The capital was used as a support city to build Bombay up to size 12 as quickly as possible. Below is a listing of the cultural improvements that were made in Bombay:

Cultural Improvement Date

Temple 2850BC
Great Library 1225BC
Mausoleum of Maussolos 975BC
Library 950BC
Sun Tzu's Art of War 410BC
Colosseum 370BC
Forbidden Palace 210BC
Cathedral 30AD
Sistine Chapel 360AD
University 430AD
Shakespeare's Theater 580AD
Newton's University 720AD
Universal Suffrage 940AD
Smith's Trading Company 1030AD
Theory of Evolution 1150AD
Hoover Dam 1250AD
Wall Street 1290AD
Heroic Epic 1360AD
Military Academy 1380AD
Pentagon 1420AD
United Nations 1490AD
SETI 1545AD
Internet 1585AD
Longevity 1625AD
Cure for Cancer 1665AD
Apollo Program 1670AD
Manhattan Project 1705AD
Intelligence Agency 1730AD

Victory in 1784AD

As can be gathered, I was unable to build any ancient age wonders besides the Great Library and the Mausoleum of Maussolos, and that hurt tremendously. As badly as I wanted to build the Statue of Zeus, I never could get ivory from Japan. Also, some 50 elite victories was awarded a Great Leader and able to build the Heroic Epic in 1360AD.

Some mistakes and lessons learned

1) Instead of building the Great Library in 1225BC, I should have built the Pyramids. If I would have done this, the other tribes would have lost their accrued shields; instead, their accrued shields eventually cost me in getting the other Ancient Age wonders except for the Mausoleum. This especially holds true in that I had a monopoly on Literature for quite some time. I am certain I could have build the Great Library as late as 300BC.

2) After building the Great Library, I turned research off completely in order to save cash for a horsemen upgrade. I realize now that I should have continued researching at full speed in order to build a Cathedral, University, the Sistine Chapel, and J.S. Bach's. If I had researched at full speed, I would have pre-empted being beaten to J.S. Bach's, and would have built Shakespeare's at a much earlier date.

3) I made a planning blunder by now having enough cash on hand to rush a university.

4) As mentioned previously, if I would have gotten a Great Leader from my numerous (50+) elite victories, I could have built the Heroic Epic much earlier. Also, if I could have acquired ivory from Japan, it would have been nice to have built the Statue of Zeus.

If any of you experts see any other problems with my game, please let me know.

My hat is off to Eldar, Chamnix, Wetsawdustdemon, and Redbad for their phenomenal 20K games. Also, Kuningas is now officially in my personal Pantheon of Heroes! 850AD 100K victory? I haven't a superlative that does such an other-wordly game justice! Wow! Note to self... "during next 100K game, use feudalism."

A couple of victory screens:





A bizarre screenshot--Notice how far away my nearest town is to Kua!

Wow, that last screenshot is strange. The only way I can see that happening is that China foolishly joined some of your workers to the city.

Edit: Did you originally build Kua?

DBear said:

Wow, that last screenshot is strange. The only way I can see that happening is that China foolishly joined some of your workers to the city. Edit: Did you originally build Kua?

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Your idea about China's joining some workers to Kua is plausible, due to the fact that China had sneak attacked me just a few turns before. However, I checked my save game files from a few turns before China did the dastardly deed, and Kua was already at size 23. My culture was more than double that of China, at 96,000 to 44,000, but it blew my mind that Kua wanted to join us, being so far away.

Actually, Kua was built by the Sumerians and conquered by the Chinese.

You played a great game, by the way!

Perhaps the Sumerians had added workers then, a longer time ago. It takes 1000 years for citizens to convert, which is quite a while after the turns start taking up 5 years.

Anyway, just submitted. After 14 (yes, 14) consecutive months of attempting for low score shield awards in the GOTM, I figured I might as well go for something else. I haven't grabbed a Diplo win in any game for a while, so that's what I went for. Persia was the other UN candidate(Arabs and Japan didn't have nearly enough population) so I was building up to attack them, but the turn I started Fission they sneak-attacked and RoP raped me. Better for me, because I had some deals going that I was going to have to wait to expire.

I took a few cities, then realised that Persia didn't nearly have enough population to be the second candidate. So I backed out of most of the captured cities, let Persia take them back, and then formed a line of tanks so the advancing Arab cavalry couldn't take any more.

Results:

Entry class: Open
Game status: Diplomatic Victory for India
Game date: 1340 AD
Firaxis score: 5485
Jason score: 8934

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Not bad for my first serious attempt at a 'good' award. Interesting things:
-No one researched Navigation, meaning no maps the whole game.
-Same deal with Sanitation, but that was no surprise. I had a clear tech lead throughout the game, with SciMeth and Refining being my two earliest monopoly techs by the end of the game. I did a bit of gifting because I had a previous war with Japan and they were Annoyed, and they apparently sold those to the Arabs, but every turn I checked, the Arabs had less than 10 gold and no appreciable GPT either.

Anyway, hopefully I grabbed a Diplo award, if not, it'll still help my GPR a bit (I have yet to be in the top 100, due to my GOTM low-score attempts.)

Xerol said:

a) Perhaps the Sumerians had added workers then, a longer time ago. It takes 1000 years for citizens to convert, which is quite a while after the turns start taking up 5 years.

b) Not bad for my first serious attempt at a 'good' award. Interesting things:

c) I have yet to be in the top 100, due to my GOTM low-score attempts.

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a) You may be right about that. Sumeria had sneak attacked me a bit earlier, and although I made him pay dearly by conquering all of his lands, he did steal a few workers. I'll be you are right.

b) Not bad at all! Good job!

c) I think you are guaranteed to be in the top 100 without any problem.

Well, I'm not referring to THIS game, I'm referring to the Global Player ranking, which takes into account the last 9(?) games. And I only got C3C a couple months ago, so I was at a disadvantage to those who have two games per month.

Xerol said:

Well, I'm not referring to THIS game, I'm referring to the Global Player ranking, which takes into account the last 9(?) games.

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Oh, I see. By the way, I just checked out some of your music, and must say that you are very talented.

Gato Loco said:

Congratulations on beating my score by a few hundred points. Do you really think that elephants would have gotten the job done? In my book, the extra movement point does more to speed up conquest than the money saved by not going for MT. You're right about the game being easy. Monarch-level enemies can't produce enough to sustain an extended war, so if they don't dogpile you, they're eventually toast.

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Cavalry didn't do much to speed up my game, because it was only about 10 turns where I used them against weak Arabia.
Either I shouldn't have researched after Chiv and used the money to rush Elephants which would have helped me in the other wars or I should have gone for MT directly, but I researched the upper path and finally bought MT from someone. (I guess Vijiyanagar)

A year ago, before I started playing COTM, I might have won on Monarch, but not that easily...

Some thoughts on 20K

Regarding JonathanValjean’s post and hopefully making up for not having a spoiler for GOTM45 hereby some of my thought on 20K. I will refer to JonathanValjean by J.

IMO success at 20K is determined by three factors:
1. building culture as fast as possible
2. building the right things
3. building as early as possible

I did some comparison on J.’s and my game. Only up until 720AD when the relevant structures of AA and MA are mostly build and because it’s a good date in the 2 games for comparing. And in that period no MGLs were used, as they pollute a fair comparison.


Building as fast as possible (efficiency):

General:
I look at the period between 2850BC when the first culture was build (temple by J.) and 720AD. That’s a period of 164 turns. J. build 3360 shields on culturebuildings, averaging thereby 20 shields a turn. I build 4460 shields, averaging 27 shields a turn. So there’s a difference of nearly a third in effiency.
Particular:
The library, colosseum, cathedral and university can be rushed. So ideally they would take only 4 turns to build, J. spend 22 turns on their construction, me 7 turns. I suppose that J. didn’t actually spend 12 turns on the cathedral, but must have build other things also between the FP and the cathedral. But even taking 1 turn for the cathedral will make J. number of turns still 11.

Conclusion on effiency:
Our 20K cities were at the same place so they have the same amount of shields available. Difference are in the waste for J. by using Bombay and a diffence in the speed of developing the terrain. But that’s not enough to explain the differences. So I suppose J. must have build other things too (or even wasted shields). So J. probably didn’t allways have culture available to build. This could be the result of too slow research or not smart enough strategy on what to build when.


Building the right things

When choosing what to build, it’s best to choose the building with the highest amount of culture relative to the required amount of shields to build them. On a scale of 1 to 100 this is a list of the most effictive culturebuilding and who build them:

67 temple………………………… both
38 library………………………… both
38 cathedral……………………… both
18 Shakespeare’s Theater……….. both
17 colosseum……………………. both
15 Great Library…………………. both
15 Newton’s university…………... both
13 Oracle………………………..... me
13 Hanging Gardens………….…... me
10 university………………….…... both
10 Mausoleum of Mausollos….….. both
10 Sistine Chapel…………….…… both
10 Forbidden Palace……………… J.
10 J.S. Batch Cathedral…………… me
10 Copernicus’ Observatory……… me
07 Knights Templar.……………… me
03 Sun Tzu’s Art of War…………. J.

Conclusion on effectiveness
So there are not much differences in things build except for the missed Oracle and Hanging Gardens by J. This is all the more painfull as J. has build the culture-wise horrible Sun Tzu for an amount of shields equal to what’s needed for the Oracle and Hanging Gardens put together. But in any case Sun Tzu really should have been avoided.

BTW.
Mind you: the buildings with rating 10 are all equal culture-effective when build. However some of them will get a 1000 year bonus and then they are not equally culture-effective of course.

Building as early as possible

Although J. build his temple 11 turns before me, in 1225BC J. had build 8 culturepoints and me 11. This developped like this:
1225BC J:08 me:11
0550BC J:13 me:19
0000AD J:19 me:34
0720AD J:44 me:60

Here’s a list of culture build by both of us and of how much earlier/later J. build them.
67 temple………………………… 11 turns earlier
38 library………………………… 20 turns later
38 cathedral……………………… 27 turns later
18 Shakespeare’s Theater……….. 18 turns later
17 colosseum……………………. 34 turns later
15 Great Library…………………. 19 turns earlier
15 Newton’s university…………... 17 turns later
10 university……………………... 33 turns later
10 Mausoleum of Mausollos…….. 10 turns later
10 Sistine Chapel………………… 27 turns later


Conclusion:
How early you have certain culture is partly the result of efficiency: when you build faster you have culture more early. But for the other part it is the result of choosing what you build. As can be seen above J. mostly acquired his culture later.

By choosing the 400 shield Glib for the 380 shield Oracle/library combo, things started to go wrong. If J. had done so he could have possibly replaced the 600 shield Sun-Tzu by Mom/ Glib or Glib/FP. Combined with finding a way to improve his efficiency it would have had a hugh impact on his game.

I hope this post will be of some use.

Phew, that's quite an analysis!

Thanks for including me in the list of good games JvJ ... but as I noted, I built Shakespeare's 20 turns too late. Whether it was because I researched Free Artistry too slowly, or because I didn't pre-build for it, I don't remember. If I'd built it in 420AD instead of 620AD, I could've snagged Smith's too (due to Delhi having that many extra shields for so long). 1555 would've been beaten.

Just wanted to add a few things to Redbad’s excellent analysis above. 20K takes a lot of planning and there are certain critical points in the game that you need to prepare for.

Start: Get your 20K city to size 12 and all it’s squares improved to get the most possible number of shields, as soon as humanly possible. Building a granary quickly also helps in certain situations.

Literature: Must be able to rush the Library in one turn (Disband a unit and around 320 gold).

Monotheism: Must be able to rush Cathedral in one turn (Disband a unit and around 640 Gold).

Education: Must be able to rush a University in one turn (Disband a unit and around 800 Gold).

Shakespeare’s Theatre: Have 8 workers (or 4 settlers) ready to join the 20K city as soon as this is built, and make sure that every tile is improved so that you have the most possible shields per turn at size 20 without starvation.

Railroads: As soon as you get Steam Power you need to build railroads as fast as you can in all the worked squares of the 20K city.

Industrialization: Vital that you build a Factory and a Coal Plant in two turns (Disband two units and around 1600 Gold). Taking two turns out to build these will in most cases let you build Universal Suffrage faster than if you built it straight after getting Industrialization.

In addition you need to do everything possible to get a great leader, turn him into an army, kill something with it, get another great leader and use him to rush the Heroic Epic in the 20K city. So long as I don’t endanger meeting the above requirements for my 20K city I use every other city I own to try and achieve this as fast as I can. This means barracks and military in every productive city and artillery in those corrupt cities, I can’t do anything else with.

You can never in my experience slack on research, even if you get the Great Library. The AI just isn’t fast enough to get the techs you need in time.

The next time I try a 20K game (most likely COTM16) I’m going to try and have two wonder building cities, the first will be the capital and 20K city, while the second will be the support city to start with but then once the 20K city has reached size 12 I’ll make it concentrate on building the other wonders like Sun-Tzu and Leonardo’s in order to stop wonder cascades.

I hope this helps

@Wet

Good points you've added as they always apply.

Maybe a small elaboration on the rushing issue of non-wonder improvements:
Rushing will cost you 4 gold/shield. This figure only applies when not starting from scratch, so Wet rightfully said you have to disband a unit first.

My elaborations would be: try to short-rush. By short-rushing I mean the following 2 actions:

When having enough gold:
Subtract your per-turn production of the 20K city from the amount of shields needed to build the desired improvement. Select the cheapest unit/improvement that requires the calculated shields or more. Hurry that unit/improvement and than change production to the intended culture-building.
For example: for library hurry a granary and then change to library, saving 80 gold.

When having not enough gold:
Now it gets a litttle complicated (and it should only be read by people interested ):

First calculate the max number of building-turns that can be saved:

Divide your gold (eg: 150) by 4. Thats the amount of shields you can cash-rush (eg: 150 / 4 = 37). Examine the units that could be disbanded in the 20K city (eg: warrior and spear). Divide the shields needed for constructing them by 4 (for every unit separately). Thats the amount of shields you can add by disbanding (eg: (10 / 4 =) 2 + (20 / 4 =) 5 = 7). Add the cash-rush amount and the disband amount and then divide the sum by the per-turn production of the 20K city. This gives the number of turns that could be saved for producing the desired culture-building (eg: library) (eg: (37 + 7 =) 44 / 28 = 1).

Now calculate the cheapest way to save the turns

Subtract the number of saveable turns from the number of turns needed to build the culture-building (eg: (80 / 28 = ) 3 - 1 = 2). Multiply the still needed building-turns with the per-turn production and subtract the result from the needed shields. This gives the lowest amount of rushing-shields (eg: 80 - (2 * 28 =) 56 = 24) Now establish how to hurry these rushing-shields (eg: set production to spearman, disband warrior (2 shields), rush spearman (2 + 18 = 20 shields) (costing 18 * 4 = 72 gold), set production to library, disband spear (20 + 5 = 25 shields))

In the example all this trouble will save you 1 turn on building the library, but in the end it can save 1 turn on 20K date,

Redbad,

Thanks so much for your thorough analysis. That must have taken you a lot of time, and I appreciate it. My biggest blunder was in regards to point #2--building the right things. I realize now that I should have built the Oracle first. In analyzing your, Wetsawdustdemon's, and Eldar's games, I noticed that each of you built the Oracle as your first Wonder. As stated previously, by building the Great Library, something that I could have built much later, I missed out on the chance to get the Oracle, Pyramids, and Hanging Gardens. I think that I should have built the Oracle first, and then at least one more Wonder before I built the Great Library. This is a huge lesson learned. Also, I made a big mistake concerning point #3--building as early as possible. By turning off research and relying on the Great Library for techs, I found myself with nothing to build... except for Sun Tzu's, which, at 2 cultural points, was certainly not my preference. I should have beelined for Free Artistry, building the Sistine Chapel en route (at a much earlier date, of course).

Wetsawdustdemon,

Thanks for your additional tips. As I played my game, I did everything that you stated except research at full speed. I rested on the laurels of the Great Library, and for that reason, found myself having nothing to build except the Sun Tzu's Art of War after being beaten to the Temple of Artemis and the Hanging Gardens. If I had been researching myself, I could have used those shields to have built the Sistine Chapel at a much earlier date. Instead, I had to settle for Sun Tzu's (not too good for culture, but it certainly came in handy during my wars), and summarily had to start all over in order to build the Sistine Chapel. Also, by not doing the research myself, I allowed the other tribes to beat me to Copernicus' Observatory and J.S. Bach's Cathedral.

I fully agree with you about the value of rushing libraries, universities, and cathedrals. I also rushed a colleseum, thanks to already being in Republic government. (Well, I didn't have enough cash for a 1-turn rush, unfortunately...judging by my timeline.) I also agree that it is much more efficient to rush a factory and a coal plant when reaching Industrialization. It allows you to build Universal Suffrage so much faster, to be sure. In regards to the Heroic Epic, unfortunately, about 50 elite victories went by before I was awarded with a Great Leader.

Your idea about having a second city dedicated to building wonders is a great one! It would be nice to not have to worry about those Wonder cascades. I suppose the alternate city could build such Wonders as the Great Wall, Leonardo's, and Sun Tzu's. Great idea!

Eldar,

I would have been amiss not to have included your game. 1605AD is an outstanding finish! And boy, if you would have completed the Shakespeare's 20 turns earlier, as you said, you certainly would have beaten 1555AD. Even so, your 1605AD finish is quite impressive!

So, guys, after analysing your games and mine, and after reading your thoughts, I think my two biggest blunders were:

1) Turning off research once I got the Great Library. This caused a host of problems including having to settle for Sun Tzu's, not outpacing the AI to the point that I could build most every Middle Age Wonder, and slowing down the rate of cultural point accrual.

2) Building the Great Library so early, when I could have built it much later. This would have allowed me to have built at least one more Ancient Age Wonder, if not two.

Lessons learned!

Open, 100K

Boy do I wish I'd done this game the easy and proper way. No matter how many times I play a 100K game, I will never ever remember the way that it should be played:
1. Research Feudalism as fast as possible, and stop.
2. Spam settlers whilst killing AI.
3. Pop-rush away.

********

Instead of my method:
1. Research Feudalism ASAP, but decide this isn't adequate, and continue to Steam/Rep Parts.
2. Hand-build culture in my 50 or so cities whilst my meager army has a poor time swatting away the opposition.
3. Eventually kill everyone.
4. Get to RP circa 550AD
5. Realise I need more settlers, so start spamming after brief transition to Feudalism.
6. Spam, whip, draft, and rush until my little peeps despise me.
7. Win in 1275AD

But still, I got a +11K Jason, so things can't be all bad. Again I applaud Kuningas and MeteorPunch (and anyone I missed) for their superb 100K dates

I could have probably saved a few turns at the end, but I was getting really really bored of drafting ~15 infantry per turn and deciding on the optimal location for them, reassigning engineers, then cycling through every city trying to find candidates for whipping, so I decided that I'd wait until I was making a nice round figure of +2000cpt then just press Enter for 20 or so turns.

This was a great map Karasu, and I had real fun playing it, I just wish I'sd chosen a less time consuming goal