G-Major 144

WastinTime said:

In spite of the larger tech costs on Huge and the fact that I did NOT bulb Edu this time, my re-engineered playstyle did set a new (all time?) Oxford record.

It forever changed the way I will play on all map sizes and game speeds. I believe I can follow up this game with a BC spaceship launch (win the game 290 AD) by pushing my strategy to the extreme.

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Ya'all will have to wait til after the gauntlet and maybe after my space game for full details.

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I look forward to it. Amazing how you manage to find new ways to re-invent the game after so many years.

I just found out something completely .

When an AI improves animal resources but when the player doesn't has AH then he doesn't get the resource. Logical, right? But then what about Seafood: Ofc. , Seafood resources are available without Fishing .

I'm just so happy that some of the CIV-DEVs were as irrational and logic as I'm sometimes because otherwise my capital would suffer from now ^^ .

Something for Pangaea or anybody else interested in this Gauntlet, my todays game:

I started on a map that I started this morning and I mainly started it to warm up a little for the real start, so it wasn't the best start I had, one problem of it is that it has 11 FPs so 4 from them which also lead towards the capital being at size 2 already as the city only has 3 Forests. Wet Corn though, riverside Grassland Ivory and 2 Golds.

I first DoWed Boudica to steal a Worker. She had 2 non-hills-cities and there was a good spot for a 3rd city with another Gold so I hoped that she'd settle it. Then I got the Great Mediator Event and conducted peace because Boudica is a low peaceweight AI so I wouldn't get many diplo-hits for re-declaring on her and I wanted her to peacefully settle and not build that many troops.

I slow-built Checkers from the capital, really very slow working a FP and the wet Corn but at size 3 I switched towards the 2 Golds and then production became fast. DoWed Darius before that because he had 2 (!) Workers improving some Cows and when I see 2 Workers I become weak .
I gathered 5 Checkers aaaaaand moved to Darius capital. 4 Archers and a Worker improving a FP . "Ok, no chance" so I chased the Worker towards the still unimproved Cows so I wouldn't need to tech AH. in the meantime the 3 stolen Workers built a Cottage so then I grew the capital to 4 working the Corn, the 2 Golds and 1 Cottage, my target was: Oracle CS. I had no idea if I'd have any chance but trying it would be interesting was my thought.
7 Checkers had arrived 'til then, moved them to Darius other city, Darius was so nice to move 2 Archers on the open Field, I conquered the city (average losses) and farmed 1 Archer open-field. Next turn Darius moved the Worker directly below the remaining Archer. "TY Darius" , Archer killed, 4th Worker mine. Healing... "there won't be that many Archers in the capital, he had 4, he sacrificed two, so there'll be 2. Moved the Checkers (5) to it: 3 Archers . "Ok, I'll wait one turn, then I'll have 6 Checkers" . Next turn: 4 Archers. "Ok, now I need at least 7 Checkers" . When 7 Checkers were there, 6 Archers . "Ok, I need to lure some of them out" . *lure lure lure and no Archer comes. I sent 1 Checker to look: 8 Archers . In the meanwhile the 4 stolen Workers were building Roads to Boudica and towards Darius, 1 for the TR is not much but what else should they do. Road finished, all Workers done, one still can move... "Ok, let's try luring him with a Worker" : Darius moves out 3 Archers . Stack next towards his city, fight 9 vs 4, I think I either had a little luck or ok chances, I believe I had a little luck because I had quite a lot promoted Checkers after it iirc.
Meanwhile the Checkers from the capital had moved to Boudica. 1 Checker discovered 2 Workers improving a tile of Cows... . Ok, 6 Workers stolen. "Hmm, that city of Boudica has only 1 Archer... and she doesn't has Slavery... hmmmm " . 15T later 2 further Checkers arrived, no further Archer, city captured with 1 loss . "1 Checker to guard the city, the other one can go exploring" . *Checker finds her capital, defended by 1 Archer . "Hmm, she still doesn't has Slavery... hmmm..." ( ) . 9T later a further Checker arrived. "I can conquer her now but I'll have one more Checker in 1T, I'll wait" ... Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand: Boudica moves a Worker in the city and builds another on that turn ! "TY Boudica!" . City captured.
Meanwhile the forces built in the cities from Darius had moved eastwards. West was blocked by Hammurabi and you know (Bowmen ) . Found Hatty, De Gaulle and Viccy with 5-6 exploring Checkers scattered all over the place. "I'll decide for De Gaulle, less Diplo-hits" . Moved the Checkers to him but moved them over Viccy's roads and saw that she had no strategics... ( ) . "Ok, I'll take both" . DoWed De Gaulle and this is the point at which I began making a few screens, because:



Slave-revolt on the turn before my attack . It's so nice when the French population is already welcoming the great Incans . City conquered with 1 loss, Checkers getting more and more promoted. Workers building a Road from Darius towards De Gaulle. Saw De Gaulles other cities and they had 0 commercial value from what I saw (I didn't detect that one of it would have had another Gold) but Viccy's capital had lots of Cottages... .
(I btw. forgot, Boudica was also so nice to build Cottages for me and I even worked non-LH coastal tiles in the capital so I really was focussing on Oracle CS. )

Moved the Checkers to her. *Viccy gets Alpha* . "Ok, no problem, just like yesterday, everybody DoWs me, I beat their Scouts and whatever they send, conduct peace and get Viccy's cities .



Worked. 6 or even 7 AIs DoWed me, I ofc. only saw the advantage that with so many AIs getting Alpha from Viccy chances of one or several AIs getting Maths had rising largely. At that time was already researching CoL but as you saw on the screen but with all those cities and not that many Golds (Darius capital had a 3rd one and I really built Cottages all over the place where it was possible and had TRs but 6 cities spread out over so much distance leave Conquest-gold as the only option) .
Destroyed hordes of Scouts and my army of Checkers rose and rose and got better promoted and better promoted and again larger and better promoted (stopping building Checkers was ofc. no choice but I ofc. De Gaulle still had an unpayed bill with me, with him I conducted peace btw. only so that he doesn't build that many troops, this should get me another -1 with Peter and -1 with Brennus but that's better than xx more Archers and ofc. I'd have the possibility to steal some Workers when attacking him again more easily ^^ ) .

Had almost no losses against Viccy and got one CR2 and CR3 Checker after the other but with noticing that I'd reach CoL easily from Conquest gold and with De Gaull not having access to any strategics I decided and started Granaries all over the empire. Having 20+ active Checkers is also very costly.

Moved to Viccy's last city: 5 Archers and 2 Workers in the city... . Attacked with 8 or 9 highly promoted troops. *Checker lost, Checker lost, Checker lost* ... I could have stopped there and the round was definitely good enough at that point already but I trusted in my highly promoted troops and finally a few one, 2 Archers remained though so I lost 6 Checkers . Next round I even needed luck but with the very final two Checkers of which one was the Healer and the other one not even fully healed I conquered the city. This was really very close, both Checkers were at 0.1-0.2 Health after that fight but I got the city and found... She had moved the Workers out .

Ok, Viccy down, many cities, the only chance for Oracle CS was if someone else gets Maths because economy sucessfully crashed . *Mansa picks Priesthood* . *I trade him Priesthood + Polytheism but bribe him against Roosevelt to lower the chances of him building Oracle* . Mansa picks MC... .

So I made the only logical justifyable decision imo. at that point, I could ofc. have gambled for Oracle but Hammurabi, Hatty and Asoka all had Priesthood and all of them have very high Wonder-build-ratings so I whipped the Oracle, took Currency, and here are the screens of what I achieved:





I think that 19 Checkers lost but also 35 built and over 30 Archers / Scouts killed speaks for itself.

The capital with its 11 FPs, now healthy because I traded for all techs and with all cities being connected I finally had enough resources.



Boudica's cities:



Darius city + a city that I settled with a Settler from Paris saying TY towards the lord (I asked for a sign and next turn Mansa picked MC and I interpreted that as that Oracle CS would be futile and Oracle Currency and this many cities is already really good imo. . It's definitely much better than my round yesterday) .



Viccy's cities (Marble available, I can settle Stone aswell if I push for a Settler, otherwise Hatty will settle it, then I can conquer her with Elepult, Christianity was so nice to spread to her automatically so she's religiously isolated) .



The lone Paris + the cities of De Gaulle that come next:



He has Iron but only in the 2nd ring and I'll not let him get it.

The map:





I really like the layout of it and which territory I own and which I can conquer. Quite a lot Forests, not so much deserts, # of Golds are decent, nice Rivers, Ivory, a 4 Gems spot, Hammurabi spread Islam towards Gandhi and Peter so I'll probably convert to it as they're good techers... I already traded CoL towards Mansa and Gandhi so they can lightbulb Philo so that I'll get that through trade aswell. I bribed Peter also in the war with Roosevelt sacrificing my relationship with Roosevelt completely but that's better than Peter as a neighbour and Peter not being in war, I'll get Hammu to friendly easily aswell and he also has CoL already in case of a bulb and he had OR so really very good technological development / level at that state: I had the chance to pick Philo with Oracle so I really was very close to CS but Currency seemed better for me because of the many TRs with so many cities and I also thought that I could trade for a larger amount of than only 600.

So I got a gg now that I can continue or fall back on should all of my other tries to get another game with Oracle CS fail (which I ofc. don't hope but Oracle CS is really not easy and several things went really good on this map. I think that 11 cities at T149 are actually really many, so I'm sorry to say this WastinTime but I think you misjudged by quite a lot when you thought that 20 are possible. This game didn't have a single hills-city and I conquered several cities defended by only 1-2 Archers and the cities I conquered had good productioin and while I focussed on the economy I basically did nothing but building Checkers for the whole beginning so I think much more cities than 11 is really only wishful dreaming, or you are somehow able to find 6 civs without strategics which is imo. very unlikely and those 6 civs all have 0 hills-cities and don't build more than 1-2 Archers to defend them.

Hope you enjoyed the read . If you followed you know that this game was a lot of fun for which I'm really thankful after 2 weeks of not getting one game going that I found at least acceptable or decent.

Seraiel said:

I'm sorry to say this WastinTime but I think you misjudged by quite a lot when you thought that 20 are possible.

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Your assumption would be incorrect

Looks like a good game so far Seraiel. I agree that getting those workers early is a game changer. I'd much rather have 10 cities with 20 workers than have 15 or 16 cities with only 10 workers. If everything aligned perfectly, such as no hill cities, 8-10 golds, Oracle CS and the perfect neighbors (with no strategics) I can see some scary stuff happening.

Seraiel said:

19 Checkers lost

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I had similar. 20 dead at T150

WastinTime said:

I had similar. 20 dead at T150

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WastinTime said:

Your assumption would be incorrect

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Did you have 20 cities?

T145 and will get Oracle next turn. Willem has Currency already, but won't trade it. It's pointless to wait for that, right, and better to just Oracle Currency myself? Need it badly.




GLH hasn't gone yet, but Willem is building it. I could chop it out and maybe beat him, but haven't got my hands on Masonry yet. Nobody wants to trade it, except Mansa ofc, but no go. Would like to get it myself, though, as Willem is a bit far south, through the jungle, and I have a few coastal cities that could benefit from it.

Feels like the game has slowed a bit now. Currently at war with Darius and have taken two cities, but everybody else around me have strategics. Peter currently doesn't, but has settled a city on top of iron (but doesn't know about it yet, without IW). Hoped I could march further along the coast and take on Gandhi next, but suddenly he wanted to trade copper, so he obviously got some of those. Took forever for him to get Slavery. Oh well. I've built a scout to more efficiently check out the south. Maybe some good opportunities will arise -- otherwise I need to hold off on more war after Darius to swords+catas or something like that.

Buddhism has over 30% spread now, so I really, really hope Brennus gets a GProphet at some point.

Looks like a very nice game, Seraiel.

Not sure if you meant 19 lost checkers was a lot or not, but that sounds pretty normal based on the games I've played so far. In my current one, I've lost 24 checkers in T145, and killed 36 archers. Naturally some of those are on flatland, so farmed with 86% or whatever it is.

A bit envious if you can keep rolling over AIs without strategics post T150 too, because that looks unlikely in my map

No idea how WastinTime could get ~20 cities by T150, as he seems to be implying. I got a really good start and had no chance to achieve that. Though it should be said that some of my neighbours got strategics early on, which made it more tricky. Would arguably be better if Mansa was further away too, so I could kill the AI that was there. To get 20 cities by T150, I think you need a majestically perfect storm.

Just hope I didn't focus on infrastructure too early in the current game. Wasn't building checkers non-stop everywhere as in some of the previous games. But almost all cities have a Terrace, so that must count for something too.

are you sure Willy dudn't Oracle Currency last turn?

Seraiel said:

Did you have 20 cities?

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yes and no.
And again, I only said 20 cities was likely on the particular map I had already started. I could see 5 close AI that I could conquer. Your maps probably don't have that. Also, one of the AI was Joao who had 7 cities.

So it was Justinian-2, Vicky-3, Liz-3, Asoka-2, Joao-7, plus my capital is 18.
Then, something you guys seem to have forgotten...


But technically, I only had 16 cities on T150 because
1) I razed 2
2) I gifted 2
3) one of my settlers wouldn't settle until T151.

So although I could have had 20+ cities, I chose to hold 17 @ t151. Either way, I don't think you can characterize it as off my estimate by "quite a lot"

Wait, so that I understand that:

You conquered 17 cities and only lost 19 Checkers while doing that?

Seraiel said:

Wait, so that I understand that:

You conquered 17 cities and only lost 19 Checkers while doing that?

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20 checkers, but yea, the extra cities are all 0% culture, non-hill.
I only captured 5 capitals. Probably about the same as you.

And, I had Chariots

I just checked. I only had 1 hill city out of 17

WastinTime said:

20 checkers, but yea, the extra cities are all 0% culture, non-hill.
I only captured 5 capitals. Probably about the same as you.

And, I had Chariots

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WastinTime said:

I just checked. I only had 1 hill city out of 17

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Chariots don't have much better chances against Checkers, a Checker against an Archer in a 0% culture-city is 26%. If you built 35 (what I understood) and only lost 19 while killing 38 (don't nail me down on those numbers, they're from memory) then you won 50% of the fights. Capitals are 18% fights and hill's cities are 6% and that all for the cases of 0 promotions. So you maybe had average chances of 20% and won 50%, by that you won even more proportionally than you did in GM-134, in GM-134 the RNG gave you 60% odds and you won 80% of the fights, that's relatively 100% more battles won than expected, 20% to 50% means you won 150% more battles than you should have.

Is someone good enough at maths and could calculate how great the odds are to win 50% of the battles if 20% are the real chances and if 38 battles are fought?

Seraiel said:

Chariots don't have much better chances against Checkers, a Checker against an Archer in a 0% culture-city is 26%. If you built 35 (what I understood) and only lost 19 while killing 38 (don't nail me down on those numbers, they're from memory) then you won 50% of the fights. Capitals are 18% fights and hill's cities are 6% and that all for the cases of 0 promotions. So you maybe had average chances of 20% and won 50%, by that you won even more proportionally than you did in GM-134, in GM-134 the RNG gave you 60% odds and you won 80% of the fights, that's relatively 100% more battles won than expected, 20% to 50% means you won 150% more battles than you should have.

Is someone good enough at maths and could calculate how great the odds are to win 50% of the battles if 20% are the real chances and if 38 battles are fought?

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your numbers are way off I don't even know where to begin.

You don't fight with that many unpromoted. Don't you build any barracks?

Also, I upgrade my CR2/CR3 to Axes, so my average odds are probably over 50%

WastinTime said:

are you sure Willy dudn't Oracle Currency last turn?

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Yes. He's had Currency for a few turns now. I've started to think about picking MC instead. Mansa is done with Calendar in 8 turns. If they exchange techs, maybe I can get Currency from one of them with MC? But like said, I really, really need Currency, breaking even at 10%.

Seraiel said:

Chariots don't have much better chances against Checkers, a Checker against an Archer in a 0% culture-city is 26%. If you built 35 (what I understood) and only lost 19 while killing 38 (don't nail me down on those numbers, they're from memory) then you won 50% of the fights. Capitals are 18% fights and hill's cities are 6% and that all for the cases of 0 promotions. So you maybe had average chances of 20% and won 50%, by that you won even more proportionally than you did in GM-134, in GM-134 the RNG gave you 60% odds and you won 80% of the fights, that's relatively 100% more battles won than expected, 20% to 50% means you won 150% more battles than you should have.

Is someone good enough at maths and could calculate how great the odds are to win 50% of the battles if 20% are the real chances and if 38 battles are fought?

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Come on Seraiel... you're smarter than this. Far from all fights will be with unpromoted checkers. Heck, even an umpromoted can farm an archer at 86% if I recall correctly. Then you have promotions. In my last fight I took on a fortified archer in a 20% city. Think the Cover-CR3 guy had 87% chance against him.

If WT is using Axes too, then that will further change things. Still, that's some very impressive REXing/warring.

I'm sorry, I remembered numbers but they were from a post of Pangaea.

Would you be so kind and reload T150 WastinTime and post a screen and give us the real numbers?

Axes aren't much stronger than Checkers and upgrades are costly. Chariots are also more expensive. Then there are 3 Settlers you built which also are resources and there's a limit, but before I want to make any further false assumption I beg that you post those screens. I already googled some statistic calculators and I'll keep this 100% mathematically and won't judge except for myself, but I just know that there are limits towards resources and conquering 17 cities with losing 18 Checkers is too unlikely imo. , it's more unlikely than oracling CS on Deity when having a 5-8 golds map.

Pangaea said:

Come on Seraiel... you're smarter than this. Far from all fights will be with unpromoted checkers. Heck, even an umpromoted can farm an archer at 86% if I recall correctly. Then you have promotions. I my last fight I took on a fortified archer in a 20% city. Think the Cover-CR3 guy had 87% chance against him.

If WT is using Axes too, then that will further change things. Still, that's some very impressive REXing/warring.

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Sorry Pangaea. I know very much what is possible and conquering 17 cities and only losing 1 Checker / city... No. The first Checkers are unpromoted that's for certain and WastinTime wrote that he had average luck in the first fights so the next ones were also with mostly unpromoted Checkers. When I write that 12 cities was already extraordinarily many for me and that I think not much more is possible, then 17 + upgrading + building 3 Settlers + even building Chariots which aren't even stronger than Checkers but cost more, no.

I've run some numbers and from what I see the probability for something like that is below 1%. That doesn't say that it's impossible but playing against a game where someone had as much luck as happens in 1% of the cases makes no sense for me anymore and then we can declare WastinTime as the winner here now and all play our games for 2nd place or further down.