[Challenge] Science victory on turn 501 (save file attached)

yetanotherus3r · Dec 8, 2014

Hello everyone! I'm quite new to this game, and when I was met with a bitter game over screen on turn 500 I had no idea what just happened.

Yup, I just lost because of time my first Standard map/Prince game, a mechanics I had completely forgotten about!

Making this worse, I am one turn away from finishing the SS Engine... So here's my challenge to you all: can you finish the spaceship in time? Can you build a civilization that will stand the test of time?

View attachment Harun al-Rashid_0263 AD-1765.Civ5Save

Here's what's happened in the game, and later what I've tried, and what you might want to avoid should you take the challenge.

Spoiler :

I've played through from the last savefile I have countless times. Here's what fails

Spoiler :

I therefore seek the help of more experienced players, before I go crazy trying to beat this map

Have fun!

http://forums.civfanatics.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=386713&stc=1&d=1418049173

Sessy · Dec 8, 2014

First off, you might not be micromanaging the citizens, so setting everything to production in Mecca will probably save a turn or two. I see you have 3.6k on the next policy, so if you have freedom level 3, you can sell 30gpt to a friend for 900 gold and buy the part. Otherwise, if you don't have it yet, buy a spaceship factory in Mecca.

beetle · Dec 8, 2014

yetanotherus3r said:
aggressive settling soon made it hard for me to expand past 3 cities, controlling a wide gulf. Picking Liberty didn't help much, possibly because I'm a noob.

That made things much harder. Liberty does very little for empires with only a few cities.

Now, on turn 472...

The game is certainly salvageable, but maybe not with only 28 turns.

Sessy said:
I see you have 3.6k on the next policy, so if you have freedom level 3, you can sell 30gpt to a friend for 900 gold and buy the part.

His choices are Order or Autocracy. Freedom, and buying SS parts, are not an option.

EDIT: What is with the three untouched dig sites inside your border? Those could easily be another policy.

yetanotherus3r · Dec 8, 2014

beetle said:
That made things much harder. Liberty does very little for empires with only a few cities.

My original plan was to have more cities, but I got screwed over :/

beetle said:
EDIT: What is with the three untouched dig sites inside your border? Those could easily be another policy.

See, this kind of stuff is why I lose games on Prince...

at least now I know what archaelogists do

Sessy · Dec 8, 2014

His choices are Order or Autocracy. Freedom, and buying SS parts, are not an option.

OP, can you explain a bit more about your policy choices? If you have order, you might be able to rush SS Engine. I still think optimizing your citizens a little bit at the end would be enough to squeeze a few turns out of the last part. I'm not sure how you couldn't finish the part considering it's T471 and you have 15 turns left.

yetanotherus3r · Dec 9, 2014

Sessy said:
OP, can you explain a bit more about your policy choices? If you have order, you might be able to rush SS Engine. I still think optimizing your citizens a little bit at the end would be enough to squeeze a few turns out of the last part. I'm not sure how you couldn't finish the part considering it's T471 and you have 15 turns left.

The only great engineer in sight is coming way too late, and i'm not getting anywhere without switching to autocracy due to the revolution going on... I can't finish the engine because I'm 17 turns away from researching particle physics (also, no great scientists until slightly too late). I need 200 beakers to finish one turn earlier though! I'm figuring it may be a solution, if there really is any to this scenario

I'm definitely making a couple more tries micromanaging the citizens, but this is really driving me crazy right now

beetle · Dec 9, 2014

yetanotherus3r said:
View attachment 386713

N.B., link is miss-named, as it is really turn 471 (as described in thread) not 263 (per file name).

I opened the file. I find city manager on gold focus. Cities w/o granary, stables, forges, and harbors! Unimproved land and idle workers. An unexploited trade that could trigger WLTKD.

More, un-upgraded units. A bunch of policies in Order, but not the very best one (Worker Facilities, for the half price factories (too late) and +25% science (always good)). Wine to Indonesia for 3 gpt when you could at least be getting 1 aluminum from him. GPr onto neighbor rather than CS who asked for Islam.

Yikes! No hermitage, no grand temple. Mixed promotions on units (1 of each) rather than picking two in the same line (to unlock better promotions).

Sessy · Dec 9, 2014

beetle said:
N.B., link is miss-named, as it is really turn 471 (as described in thread) not 263 (per file name).

I opened the file. I find city manager on gold focus. Cities w/o granary, stables, forges, and harbors! Unimproved land and idle workers. An unexploited trade that could trigger WLTKD.

More, un-upgraded units. A bunch of policies in Order, but not the very best one (Worker Facilities, for the half price factories (too late) and +25% science (always good)). Wine to Indonesia for 3 gpt when you could at least be getting 1 aluminum from him. GPr onto neighbor rather than CS who asked for Islam.

Yikes! No hermitage, no grand temple. Mixed promotions on units (1 of each) rather than picking two in the same line (to unlock better promotions).

hey, it's his(her?) first game, we all do crazy stuff, I actually went freedom Mongolia in my first prince run.

OP, sorry I didn't see clearly, you were building the stasis chamber, and I thought it was the engine. Let's assess the situation:

1. you have order, but not the policy to rush parts. If you can at all get a order level 3 tenet, go for spaceflight pioneers. You can check if it works by calculating the amount of culture left if you use gold to ally city states and work all guild specialist slots. Or alternatively build the kremlin in time.

2. if you haven't gotten the universities/public schools/research labs up in your capital (where I assume the National College) is, I suggest borrowing money from a friend AI and buying them. Work all the science specialists, and all specialists in general if you have the secularism policy in rationalism. That might generate enough science. If you haven't built oxford already, do it if you can manage it in less than 5 turns. That will grant you particle physics if you complete oxford university after you finish mobile tactics.

beetle · Dec 9, 2014

I failed.

Spoiler :

wideframehoss · Dec 9, 2014

Interesting. Keep us updated.

beetle · Dec 9, 2014

yetanotherus3r said:
A Great Scientist spawns slightly too late (4 turns) and a Great Engineer also, who is useless without keeping Order (hurry spaceship parts tenet)

Where did you spawn the GE? I can keep order, but without GE it does not matter.

beetle · Dec 9, 2014

Sessy said:
hey, it's his(her?) first game, we all do crazy stuff, I actually went freedom Mongolia in my first prince run.

Not his first game. Nothing wrong with Freedom on Mongolia first run in prince. One wants to try all the policies.

1. you have order, but not the policy to rush parts.

Nope that's there.

beetle · Dec 9, 2014

Okay, I pulled this off on my fourth (!) try. Medina has just enough time to hard build harbor, seaport, SS factory, and then two (!) SS parts. Timely aluminum was an issue, so I paid through the nose for it. I am going to try again, see if I can get to turn 497 or so.

One key is to bribe Maria to DOW Indonesia as that keeps her GG off your lawn. Luxes are available, so happy was not a problem, and I was able to keep all cities at WLKD.

Indonesia will pay 1 or 2 Al for WC votes (Autocracy, world leader) that don’t matter.

Here is a run down:

T471 Trade oil to Maria for Pearls and Ivory for WLTKD in two cities and CS quest. Put cities on default focus. Queue up one work boat (to pick up oil for trades), granary, stables, forge, harbors and then sea ports. Take SS part out of queue in Mecca so Medina can build SS Factory. Mecca has time for nuclear plant before going back to work on SS part. Wake workers to improve tiles near Medina. Move arty into city and extra melee units to rails. Damascus should build cargo ships then archeologists. Save gold and spend when it will get you ally status.

T473 Get an SP in Order, 5 Year Plan for production boost, since it is too late for Workers’ Facilities to make a difference.

T476 Wine trade w/ Indonesia expires, but this time I cannot get afford copper until T478. Worth it for WLKD.

T492 Trade w/ Shoshone to get WLKDs again. Have not seen Maria’s GG this time.

Turns 471 and 499 (pre-launch) attached.

Also OP, run cargo ships out of Mecca (holy city and EITC) not Medina.

LoneRebel · Dec 9, 2014

I knew it was possible to shave off a turn or two somehow. (I didn't download the save to try it myself, since I'm rather busy right now.)

Yeah, these are all the little things that really add up and make a big difference cumulatively. Most of them weren't apparent from the screenshot alone, although looking at it now, I can see the unimproved tiles and the unused trade routes. Having unimproved tiles this late in the game is a no-no. And then there's the matter of all those trade routes too.

Acken · Dec 9, 2014

I also won it at turn 499. I rushed a spaceship factory in medina, built some lumbermills, DoW portugal because of GG and nuke her. Then put everything on production in medina with unemployed citizen adding 1hammer instead of food tiles.

beetle · Dec 10, 2014

I never did better than t499, and that was with an unlikely benign Maria. I think maybe she wants the dig site, not the coal. So maybe parking a unit there keeps away the GG?

A couple more comments for OP...

yetanotherus3r said:
My pals Poland and Sweden quickly followed suit, only to be wiped off the face of the earth by Idonesia and Shoshoni (autocracy), which I held off my land with nukes.

I have used nukes defensively, but it is kind of wasteful. The AI is terrible a amphibious assault, so you really should not have had to resorted to nukes. But the worse thing about nukes IMHO is that it deprives your units of xp!

...provide the aluminum I had to give up for peace with Indonesia.

I just picked up on this detail. I had assumed the Al had gone towards getting Indonesia to fight Shoshone. The AI sets crazy terms for peace (when winning or losing) so (in the future) feel no guilt with deleting items and changing to white peace.

On the other hand, immediately changing to Order and befriending Maria will prevent here from stealing a crucial plot of land connecting Medina to Mecca, which she will do in a few turns. The key seems manipulating her to wage war on Indonesia.

You mean staying in Order, right? Maria was crazy, accepting my DoF request then denouncing me -- three turns in row. Even with the relatively cheap bribe to have her war Indonesia, in all but one game she used her GG on me.

I've tried switching it [Damasco] to produce science, but it doesn't cut it. I've also tried working some last-second trading posts, also not making it.

TP are slow, but I was not able to push the science any better. 472 + 5 + 12 + 9 = 499. Your math is tight, I am not sure why I thought I could push that couple of turns! It was a nice puzzle, thanks OP!

[Challenge] Science victory on turn 501 (save file attached)

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