Dr kossin #17

I apologize in advance to everyone but it looks as though the next round will have to wait a bit. My mouse is dieing on me and I can't left-click anymore!

I'll try to open it to see if there's something wrong, otherwise I need a new one

Edit: It works 50/50 now, I'll try to do a short round.

Edit2: Apparently it was only temporary. It's completely broken now. I'll try to buy a new mouse today but I can't provide any guarantee that I'll get a round in.

Round 2

Got a new mouse so things can continue without a stop!

I played for a thousand years, so up to 200AD.

I ran 2 scientists in Timbuktu as soon as I could and got lucky and was rewarded with an Academy.


Rather than making a fishing net with the workboat I had just produced, I sent him to scout around that barb culture area... we're not alone with WK it seems. Moreover, he beelined Construction for Hwachas and next Feudalism. I'm glad we're not alone so I don't have to fight through those, for now.


He was quite backwards when I met him... is it something to do with Global_Highlands?


Wk was teching pretty fast as a matter of fact. At least, it provided me with trade opportunities. His land doesn't seem to be that good but I guess Financial shines more in this mapscript.


I met one of the better AIs next. Well rounded warmonger-builder.


I built 2 more wonders using Marble... I don't need to tell you which.


Another AI is met.


Timbuktu is growing quite fast. I even whipped it a few times this round to get things out faster. Anyway, as I got the next GS I stopped. He can bulb Philosophy to allow running Pacifism and really bring the GPP up.


Timbuktu - Bureaucracy can be adopted in 3 turns (switched to Caste System recently to pop borders of a new city)


Land - one city site is obvious, the other has 2 choices.


Techs


Diplomacy. Most negatives are from running Hinduism but a few are Worst Enemy penalties that will decay over time.

The continent to our south seems massive and it looks like there's even more land west of AC. Any military effort will be hard against it before the modern era given our restricted land. Maybe a peaceful win is in order here though.


Timbuktu would be a great pure GP farm but I couldn't resist to throw a few cottages in the mix to use the Bureaucracy bonus.

I recommend trying very hard to earn a 4th level unit to unlock HE. If you unlock it soon enough, Medieval war will be very possible before Wang Kon gets Rifling.

Round 3a

I didn't manage to unlock Heroic Epic, but fortunately, it would not be needed.

Research kept improving, getting us first to a late Philosophy.


Ways into gold...


A few backfilling trades were available. Global_Highlands seems to jinx the AI quite a bit. No one had Civil Service by 1000AD except me!


I lazily researched towards Liberalism, not using any bulbs. (All GP were settled in Timbuktu).


Another trade. I also got her out of Caste for fun.


And then the last AI met us (he is isolated on a guitar-shaped island).


Unfortunately, I delayed the Taj Mahal by 1 turn too much and cashed in on the failure.


After Liberalism, I headed to Rifling and then to Assembly Line. I put up the Globe Theater in Walata and drafted it to size 5 while other cities concentrated on canons.

Here is a shot of Timbuktu before the war.


I'll spare you screenshots of every city captured/razed and only show the relevant parts. Tactic was pretty conventional Bombard, canon barrage, clean up with rifles. I split into 2 stacks fairly early in the war as WK couldn't put up a fight without even Gunpowder - although he would get to rifles but by then he only had 2 cities left.


Mid-war trade with Augustus.


This time, I saved the Economics free Great Merchant.


And got lucky to find him a pair.


I stopped shortly after with 2 obvious paths to choose from. Space or a military approach.
Techs


Diplomacy


Timbuktu now


Land overview


Space from here is trivial. I'll have way more production than anyone with Sushi and Mining and I already have a fairly wide tech lead.

OTOH, Domination/Conquest will also be fairly easy due to the tech lead I have and number of cities that will be productive. It will be slow with so much land to cover though.

I think I'll go for space as this game is clearly in the bag and there's not much point to make by killing people without Infantry.

Good thing that Gao's culture was strong enough to take the Iron away from Wang Kon. By the looks of the screenshot, it appears that the culture bonus from being the holy city of Taoism really helped out.

If, for some reason, you were not able to grab the Iron from Wang Kon, then a war with Trebuchets still would have been possible, provided that you could unlock HE.

Artichoker said:

Good thing that Gao's culture was strong enough to take the Iron away from Wang Kon. By the looks of the screenshot, it appears that the culture bonus from being the holy city of Taoism really helped out.

Click to expand...

That and the Music Great Artist that was settled there

Artichoker said:

If, for some reason, you were not able to grab the Iron from Wang Kon, then a war with Trebuchets still would have been possible, provided that you could unlock HE.

Click to expand...

Definitely. I would have gotten iron very early in the war still so there would have been little actual difference. I was actually planning to settle a city behind WK to grab Iron but when I saw that culture would get me Iron peacefully, that plan was aborted.

The sad part about HE is I had an Axe that was well under way to 10XP but it died on a hill forest against a barb archer earlier, behind WK.

So I've been really enjoying lurking on these, and see that you almost always purposely go for failure gold from wonders. I have two questions regarding that technique that seems quite successful.

1) Where do you find the spare hammers to partially build wonders? I find I'm always either going for infrastructure or units and rarely (at Monarch) reach a point where I feel I can spare them. Is it just a case of weighing long term over short term?

2) How does it compare to building gold? I assume it is a better conversion of hammers to gold than straight building gold because otherwise you'd just do that. But is it always? Does having multiplier resources (eg marble) increase gold given/hammer invested or just let you build more net hammers for fewer actually hammers invested? Does it work the same way for other multipliers like buildings (eg forge) and civics/traits (state property/industrious)?

1) Where do you find the spare hammers to partially build wonders? I find I'm always either going for infrastructure or units and rarely (at Monarch) reach a point where I feel I can spare them. Is it just a case of weighing long term over short term?

Click to expand...

Yes. There are no magic hammers, you are investing them into gold or you are investing them into units and city improvements. What makes a high level player is picking the options with the best returns.

2) How does it compare to building gold? I assume it is a better conversion of hammers to gold than straight building gold because otherwise you'd just do that. But is it always? Does having multiplier resources (eg marble) increase gold given/hammer invested or just let you build more net hammers for fewer actually hammers invested? Does it work the same way for other multipliers like buildings (eg forge) and civics/traits (state property/industrious)?

Click to expand...

W/O IND or a resource, it is identical to building gold except that you don't get the payout right away. In that respect, it is weaker, but keep in mind that you can fail wonders as soon as you can build them, but for gold you must wait for currency.

Resources can often be traded for too.

Stochastic said:

So I've been really enjoying lurking on these, and see that you almost always purposely go for failure gold from wonders. I have two questions regarding that technique that seems quite successful.

1) Where do you find the spare hammers to partially build wonders? I find I'm always either going for infrastructure or units and rarely (at Monarch) reach a point where I feel I can spare them. Is it just a case of weighing long term over short term?

2) How does it compare to building gold? I assume it is a better conversion of hammers to gold than straight building gold because otherwise you'd just do that. But is it always? Does having multiplier resources (eg marble) increase gold given/hammer invested or just let you build more net hammers for fewer actually hammers invested? Does it work the same way for other multipliers like buildings (eg forge) and civics/traits (state property/industrious)?

Click to expand...

TMIT pretty much nailed it here but I'll just add a word or two.

If you are in a relatively peaceful area, you don't need that many units and after a city has its base infrastructure, it can usually spare hammers on wonders/building gold. If you're lagging too far behind on improvements, odds are you're not whipping or chopping enough.
Keep in mind you can build a wonder in several cities and complete it yourself to cash in the gold.

Round 3b

I decided to finish the game today... it was simple enough.

There's not much to report as I was so far ahead of the competition techwise. I spread the corporations, built hammer multipliers and some science ones, then built wealth/science as needed.

I switched out of Environmentalism as Genetics came in and the other health buildings - that really cut corporation costs.

I built a few wonders... notably this one which I didn't use much actually.


After building 2 Engines, it was time to launch.


No one thought to stop us so...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Post game

Strong capital and a map script that seems to slow down the AI because of the amount of hills.

Timbuktu. What a monster city.


Demographics!


The end score isn't flattering but that's to be expected of 20th century space victories.


Dr kossin #18 is coming up tomorrow, keep reading!

EDIT:
@TMIT - nice game, you didn't even meet Justinian it seems.
@obsolete - ugh, I did consider settling the marble but the land being so brown kept me away. That and finding the gold with the initial warrior, of course.
@Isgag - you have so many trees left! Using the Globe Theater to draft rifles while other cities build siege engines worked well for me and it probably can for you as well I guess.

@ Kossin

Nicely done! You are correct ---> not only did I not meet Justinian, I did not know it was him in the game until I watched the replay after winning . You beat my score which was ~22k since I was pretty small! At least I out-scored the AI (after normalization ).

Thanks TMIT and Kossin, I think I'll go try it out a bit.

kossin said:

If you are in a relatively peaceful area

Click to expand...

what with the current Kos SG and my general tendencies, that is relatively rare!