Magma_Dragoon
Reploid
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Are you majoring in Empire Management at the Munich Academy of World Domination Sciences?
The "Official" Diety Overflow Exploit Challenge
- Thread starter Cromagnus
- Start date
Are you majoring in Empire Management at the Munich Academy of World Domination Sciences?
ravenmagus
Warlord
I should discover sail boats, spears, and bridges quickly because someone else has already invented sail boats, spears, and bridges.
I should not discover sail boats, spears, bridges, nuclear missiles, laser guns, and stealth bombers quickly because someone else has already invented sail boats, spears, and bridges.
No one is complaining about the fact that it takes fewer turns to research techs that are known by other civs. What makes this "exploit" undesirable is that the game becomes trivially unchallenging, even at deity. It devalues the need for creative strategies and tactics. No longer there is a need to really analyze the game - to incorporate terrain characteristics, etc. The stuff that makes the game fun is no more.
The game units, techs, game mechanics, etc reflect reality and game history. But they are remodeled in a way to make the game fun and "playable".
ANd plus, just because a great scientist is born in middle of a third world country in medieval era, the country isn't going to suddenly overtake future techs. Certainly, being behind in science should not be a requirement for leapfrogging in learning science unknown to any civ.
Did turn 185 science victory as babylon. I reloaded, so this game doesn't qualify. I just wanted to comment on my experience with science overflow. Only had science victory in mind when playing this.
I made an academy with the first GS to speed up science. Went education and observatories. Was able to save up 2 GSes by the time I finished archaeology ~T105. Was generating ~350 bpt between 3 cities (2 jungle heavy cities with observatories). Also had secularism and free thought. Bulbed two GSes to get about ~4500 science I think. Then accumulated total science ~26,000 through 5 techs (construction, enginering, iron working, metal casting, physics, and steel). I didn't find that machinery giving a boost, so I reloaded to take a few turns researching more expensive techs. Went down to excess of ~22,000 and had to research machinery eventually. Unfortunately, not much boost again.
So got more than 7 fold boost from 5 techs, which is weird because (1+0.3*(7/8))^5 = only 3.2. I did micromanage science output so that archaeology was researched with largest overflow possible. But even then, that could not have been more than 350 beakers. And even if science generated during each turn was added to the overflow, that was 350*5 turns = 1750. So, 4500+350+1750 = 6600.
So even with this simplified overestimation of beaker input, I got over 4.2 fold boost when expected was only 3.2.
Anyway, definitely quite strong. Probably saved me about 20 turns. In retrospect:
I should not have researched masonry or bronze working (though I had marble and removed jungle for a single citrus). This would have given me over 40% boost. And 40% of 28,000 is a lot. I feel like purposely slowing down science to give AIs turns to finish low techs maybe a good idea (maybe go broke). And maybe picking science heavy AIs may be good.
I will probably try again with Babylon. This time, I will only research techs required for education, maybe with exception of mining. Hopefully about full boost through 10 techs or so and some partial boosts. I will have lower science output without the observatories, but maybe the sweet spot lies in bigger boosts. Not sure whether to save the first GS.
EDIT: I was wrong. I went back and checked the game and I didn't bulb until turn 118, with 426 bpt. The science input at this time was 6290. So this checks out. Sorry for the confusion.
I made an academy with the first GS to speed up science. Went education and observatories. Was able to save up 2 GSes by the time I finished archaeology ~T105. Was generating ~350 bpt between 3 cities (2 jungle heavy cities with observatories). Also had secularism and free thought. Bulbed two GSes to get about ~4500 science I think. Then accumulated total science ~26,000 through 5 techs (construction, enginering, iron working, metal casting, physics, and steel). I didn't find that machinery giving a boost, so I reloaded to take a few turns researching more expensive techs. Went down to excess of ~22,000 and had to research machinery eventually. Unfortunately, not much boost again.
So got more than 7 fold boost from 5 techs, which is weird because (1+0.3*(7/8))^5 = only 3.2. I did micromanage science output so that archaeology was researched with largest overflow possible. But even then, that could not have been more than 350 beakers. And even if science generated during each turn was added to the overflow, that was 350*5 turns = 1750. So, 4500+350+1750 = 6600.
So even with this simplified overestimation of beaker input, I got over 4.2 fold boost when expected was only 3.2.
Anyway, definitely quite strong. Probably saved me about 20 turns. In retrospect:
I should not have researched masonry or bronze working (though I had marble and removed jungle for a single citrus). This would have given me over 40% boost. And 40% of 28,000 is a lot. I feel like purposely slowing down science to give AIs turns to finish low techs maybe a good idea (maybe go broke). And maybe picking science heavy AIs may be good.
I will probably try again with Babylon. This time, I will only research techs required for education, maybe with exception of mining. Hopefully about full boost through 10 techs or so and some partial boosts. I will have lower science output without the observatories, but maybe the sweet spot lies in bigger boosts. Not sure whether to save the first GS.
EDIT: I was wrong. I went back and checked the game and I didn't bulb until turn 118, with 426 bpt. The science input at this time was 6290. So this checks out. Sorry for the confusion.
"best way" to abuse this is probably a double run
leave both mining/bronze/massonary AND sailing open
tech University - use 1 or 2 scientists to bulb your way either to astro or public/Schools/labs (usually towards public Schools if not only obsrvatory cities)
Then build the science boost and wait for 1 or 2 more guys and abuse other path to finish tech tree.
leave both mining/bronze/massonary AND sailing open
tech University - use 1 or 2 scientists to bulb your way either to astro or public/Schools/labs (usually towards public Schools if not only obsrvatory cities)
Then build the science boost and wait for 1 or 2 more guys and abuse other path to finish tech tree.
Cromagnus
Deity
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Yeah I've thought about doing a double run. You can leave one cheap line unresearched and still boost. But saving the first one for public schools seems like waiting too long. That'll maybe get you t135 public schools. Maybe instead use the first one to get early education? If you could get t85 education from bronze working, then do it again from sailing to get research labs, you might get a better result. Either way, without scholars in residence you can't really finish out the tree, but getting scholars in residence in time for a second run might be the most optimal approach. Considering I managed combustion on t151 on a sub-optimal run, I bet t145 plastics is achievable with a better play through. It has less pre-reqs if I recall and is cheaper.
budweiser
King of the Beers
I know it seems like I contradicted myself. What I meant was invent that which has been invented until you invent that which has not been invented and use it to win.
ravenmagus
Warlord
Don't get me wrong. I do like the 'catch up' mechanic, I think it makes sense and it helps people behind in science not automatically lose (though it's a rough slope anyways), but it shouldn't apply to Scientist beakers like that.
TheGrumpyBuddha
King
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My two cents -- I can't see playing Civ again until this is fixed. Even if you don't plot and plan to maximize its use, it's still going to be worth a free tech or four unless you're completely ahead of everyone else. It's an exploit you can take big advantage of without even knowing it, and in many games, it may be quite difficult to avoid taking advantage of it.
Cromagnus
Deity
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I'm almost certain I've accidentally taken advantage of it. For example, one of my earliest England Domination wins (Immortal though, not Deity) I bulbed a GS to catch up on techs so that my upcoming spy tech steal would get a more expensive tech. I intentionally used the beakers on the cheapest techs, figuring that this way I would get more total beakers. (bulb + steal)
By doing so, I undoubtedly got a BUNCH of overflow beakers. This may have been back in G&K though.
TheGrumpyBuddha
King
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Yeah, me too. There is at least one case where I remember being surprised at how I was able to bulb 7 scientists and get almost every tech left, even ones past the spaceship techs. At the time I thought it was because my bpt at bulbing was a little higher than usual (1100 or so) but now I'm almost certain it was because of overflow. Argh!
Cromagnus
Deity
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Back to the topic of this thread, achieving an optimal time-to-victory with this exploit, I'm still debating how best to do this with Domination.
One thing about this exploit that is fun for Domination is that you can get Ideology much earlier than you otherwise could unless you went for Radio. So, you can actually take advantage of some of those ideology policies. The question is, which ones to take first? Order or Autocracy? Keep in mind that you're probably only going to go 3-4 policies into ideology before you win if you're shooting for an optimal victory. So the level 3 policies are kind of pointless for this. (Like Iron Curtain, even though it sounds useful, is 6 policies in)
These all sound useful to me in the goal of rushing out end-game units:
Double Agents - Protect that tech lead!
Socialist Realism - Happiness for the conquer-fest!
Worker's Faculties - Get Factories up faster to speed building those late-game units that you can't promote from pre-industrial techs, like Paratroopers or GWB.
Five Year Plan - Might actually boost production *more*
Of these, which do you think is the best Order tech for getting your domination on with high-tech units? I think the dilemma is that getting, say, Flight, so early, means you're going to spend 20 turns building units, because your cities haven't had time to grow big enough to have decent production, and because you haven't had time to build Factories.
So, a combination of rush-buying buildings and/or promoting units is probably the best way to get the army up fast, but is Big Ben + Skyscrapers better than say Honor + Pentagon? Is rush-buying factories better than rush-buying GWB?
For Autocracy, here are the ones I think might be useful:
Elite Forces: bonus damage = good, especially since your powerful units will probably be slightly damaged for the entire attack run.
Lightning Warfare - This could potentially speed an attack run, allowing you slip right by the enemy and take the capital.
Militarism - Lots of bonus happiness is good
Mobilization - If you went down the Commerce track instead of Honor, this would be good. Probably your best bet for a Flight-based attack, since you can't upgrade into it.
And of couse there are the buildings. Kremlin seems more useful than Prora, although Pentagon seems even more useful. You probably won't be able to build both in a reasonable amount of time. The thing is, building armor units vs upgrading them is just too slow, so Kremlin isn't as useful. And Prora requires that coastal city.
So, for me it's a toss-up between Big Ben and Pentagon, or, rather, a toss-up between Honor and Commerce. I feel like Honor+Pentagon gives you the fastest finish time, because you can upgrade all your units within a few turns.
The question then becomes, which units do you upgrade? Given that you have to research Combined Arms, Tanks are an obvious one, and it's no problem to have 7 horsemen ready for upgrade. But Tanks by themselves take cities too slowly. Artillery is the other obvious choice, and Tanks do make great support for artillery.
However, it might be better to skip Combined Arms, settle for the Honor upgrade cost reduction, and go down a different path, like, say, Rocket Artillery. I think this is too far down the tree, but you get the idea. Since speed is the goal, and Flight requires many less technologies, perhaps GWB + cavalry is the best bet, using Big Ben and Mobilization to get the GWB out faster. Hmmm.
One thing about this exploit that is fun for Domination is that you can get Ideology much earlier than you otherwise could unless you went for Radio. So, you can actually take advantage of some of those ideology policies. The question is, which ones to take first? Order or Autocracy? Keep in mind that you're probably only going to go 3-4 policies into ideology before you win if you're shooting for an optimal victory. So the level 3 policies are kind of pointless for this. (Like Iron Curtain, even though it sounds useful, is 6 policies in)
These all sound useful to me in the goal of rushing out end-game units:
Double Agents - Protect that tech lead!
Socialist Realism - Happiness for the conquer-fest!
Worker's Faculties - Get Factories up faster to speed building those late-game units that you can't promote from pre-industrial techs, like Paratroopers or GWB.
Five Year Plan - Might actually boost production *more*
Of these, which do you think is the best Order tech for getting your domination on with high-tech units? I think the dilemma is that getting, say, Flight, so early, means you're going to spend 20 turns building units, because your cities haven't had time to grow big enough to have decent production, and because you haven't had time to build Factories.
So, a combination of rush-buying buildings and/or promoting units is probably the best way to get the army up fast, but is Big Ben + Skyscrapers better than say Honor + Pentagon? Is rush-buying factories better than rush-buying GWB?
For Autocracy, here are the ones I think might be useful:
Elite Forces: bonus damage = good, especially since your powerful units will probably be slightly damaged for the entire attack run.
Lightning Warfare - This could potentially speed an attack run, allowing you slip right by the enemy and take the capital.
Militarism - Lots of bonus happiness is good
Mobilization - If you went down the Commerce track instead of Honor, this would be good. Probably your best bet for a Flight-based attack, since you can't upgrade into it.
And of couse there are the buildings. Kremlin seems more useful than Prora, although Pentagon seems even more useful. You probably won't be able to build both in a reasonable amount of time. The thing is, building armor units vs upgrading them is just too slow, so Kremlin isn't as useful. And Prora requires that coastal city.
So, for me it's a toss-up between Big Ben and Pentagon, or, rather, a toss-up between Honor and Commerce. I feel like Honor+Pentagon gives you the fastest finish time, because you can upgrade all your units within a few turns.
The question then becomes, which units do you upgrade? Given that you have to research Combined Arms, Tanks are an obvious one, and it's no problem to have 7 horsemen ready for upgrade. But Tanks by themselves take cities too slowly. Artillery is the other obvious choice, and Tanks do make great support for artillery.
However, it might be better to skip Combined Arms, settle for the Honor upgrade cost reduction, and go down a different path, like, say, Rocket Artillery. I think this is too far down the tree, but you get the idea. Since speed is the goal, and Flight requires many less technologies, perhaps GWB + cavalry is the best bet, using Big Ben and Mobilization to get the GWB out faster. Hmmm.
TheGrumpyBuddha
King
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"Some dude"?! It was Nobel! Who almost called dynamite "Nobel's Safety Powder", which would be awesome. Someone needs to create a mod just to change that in the tech tree ...
"My dynamite will sooner lead to peace than a thousand world conventions. As soon as men will find that in one instant, whole armies can be utterly destroyed, they surely will abide by golden peace."
Cromagnus
Deity
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Cromagnus
Deity
- Joined
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Having my best run yet at this:
Pacal, Diety, Standard, Standard, Pangaea, standard map settings.
Social Policies: Tradition -> Monarchy -> Liberty -> Republic -> Representation -> Meritocracy -> Closer
Techs: Pottery -> AH -> Mining -> Masonry -> Philosophy -> Theology -> Construction -> Education -> Acoustics -> Banking -> Architecture
I partially teched Engineering, Sailing and Bronzeworking while they were still expensive enough to do that, so additional excess beakers are stored in those techs. I teched Construction out of necessity, sadly.
Started with Tradition to avoid building Monuments, I got Sun God and had citrus/banana heaven, so Monarchy then full Liberty. Didn't need Granaries until like t80. Couldn't work the jungle so I expo'd on a Citrus, which apparently doesn't give you the Sun God benefit. I was expecting it to.
Build Order in capital: scout, pyramid, scout, atlatlist, atlatlist, settler, settler, library, NC->Pyramids->Writer's Guild->National Epic->Garden->Granary->Market.
Satellite BO: Library (bought in 2nd expo), pyramid, atlatlist, market, granary, catapults when I didn't have anything else I could build. I'm going for Rocket Artillery.
Rush-bought caravan as soon as I could. Stole 3 workers. Rush bought university in capital. (To get the 9 GS points/turn ASAP)
T60ish 3-city NC. Missed the t62 baktun, got Theology on t66.
T92 Education (Personal best wooo!), t99 Acoustics, t109 Banking, should complete Architecture on t120 unless I manage to steal it first on t117...
Sejong entered the Renaissance on t89(!) but didn't go after Printing Press... damn, that would have been *choice*. Could have sent a diplomat to a friend and had t115 Scholars In Residence!!
I went for the National Epic to try to get the free GS before the t101 Baktun, but I missed it by 2 turns... sigh. T103 GS. Yay. Had to build the NE while I was waiting for Education, before I knew for sure if I'd hit my t90 goal or not. (Depends on AI caravans)
Had I teched Sailing, one more caravan would have gotten me Education before t90, so now I know I *can* do that in future non-exploity SV attempts.
Baktun order: t72 Great Artist for culture/money/production, t86 Great General (to secure resources), t101 Great Writer (to finish Liberty), t117 Great Scientist, then t133 Great Engineer. (For Big Ben)
On t117, or shortly thereafter, depends on when I finish Architecture, I'll be bulbing 3 GS. (points, baktun and liberty closer)
I'm hoping that I can get to Rocket Artillery on t150, based on my last run getting me to Combustion on t151 after bulbing 2 GS on t120. I'm probably going to save before I do it, just in case I miss, and go back and see what I could have gotten instead.
We'll see how it goes, but so far, were this a regular game, it would be my most successful SV attempt ever... haha. 150 beakers by t100, another personal best. Took me a while to get the 2nd and 3rd university up... had to hard-build them... not a lot of luxes to sell because I couldn't work the jungle citrus.
My biggest problem is going to be the upgrade costs for all the horsemen, CBs, warriors, and catapults... My current plan is to sell gpt for gold and break DOF with everyone one at a time in the same turn, to get all the gold and upgrade really fast... We'll see if my rocket artillery army can pull it off.
If I don't find aluminum, (highly likely given my small empire) I'm going to to just do regular artillery... should still be a personal best for that. I've decided I don't like GWB or landships as an alternative. Here's why:
GWB & Landships are 50 and 60 strength with no inherent city bonuses. Artillery are 28 strength with +200% damage vs cities. So, on offense, they're 84 strength... and they don't take damage when they attack.
Aside from the obvious mobility issues, artillery > GWB and Landships for taking cities, despite being available much sooner and not requiring oil... I dunno, that seems imbalanced. But there it is, artillery are just the most effective city attack option.
The more I stared at the tree, the more I realized that there really isn't anything good for fast conquest on land after artillery unless you can put together multiple GWB fleets, and I can't afford a ton of units with this rush tactic. I'll barely be able to buy a few of them. Plus there are the obvious rebasing concerns. I can't afford to take every city for time and happiness reasons, and GWB have a short rebase range.
But, 3 Rocket Artillery... could probably clear the map with those + cavalry in like, 20 turns.
We'll see if I can actually get that many beakers. It's only 3 more techs than Biology + Combustion. But they're 5k each. So I need 42k beakers, and with 2 GS I got 27k. So it's quite possible... but it'll be close. Then I just have to cross my fingers and hope for Aluminum.
Anyway, quite fun so far figuring out how to time all this. The GW really help me get my last liberty GS out despite opening Tradition. Opening Tradition avoided having to build monuments, which got my libraries/pyramids up much faster, for faster Education. Then, Liberty helped me finish all my buildings and improve tiles. Early Education ensures I get a GS before my target t117 baktun. If I went for a t133 bulb, I could have 5 GS, but the problem at that point is that I'm researching 32 techs... so I wouldn't finish that until t165 at the earliest. This way, I finish at t152, but I risk not getting all the way to Rocket Artillery. Hopefully my gamble will pay off.
Pacal, Diety, Standard, Standard, Pangaea, standard map settings.
Social Policies: Tradition -> Monarchy -> Liberty -> Republic -> Representation -> Meritocracy -> Closer
Techs: Pottery -> AH -> Mining -> Masonry -> Philosophy -> Theology -> Construction -> Education -> Acoustics -> Banking -> Architecture
I partially teched Engineering, Sailing and Bronzeworking while they were still expensive enough to do that, so additional excess beakers are stored in those techs. I teched Construction out of necessity, sadly.
Started with Tradition to avoid building Monuments, I got Sun God and had citrus/banana heaven, so Monarchy then full Liberty. Didn't need Granaries until like t80. Couldn't work the jungle so I expo'd on a Citrus, which apparently doesn't give you the Sun God benefit. I was expecting it to.
Build Order in capital: scout, pyramid, scout, atlatlist, atlatlist, settler, settler, library, NC->Pyramids->Writer's Guild->National Epic->Garden->Granary->Market.
Satellite BO: Library (bought in 2nd expo), pyramid, atlatlist, market, granary, catapults when I didn't have anything else I could build. I'm going for Rocket Artillery.
Rush-bought caravan as soon as I could. Stole 3 workers. Rush bought university in capital. (To get the 9 GS points/turn ASAP)
T60ish 3-city NC. Missed the t62 baktun, got Theology on t66.
T92 Education (Personal best wooo!), t99 Acoustics, t109 Banking, should complete Architecture on t120 unless I manage to steal it first on t117...
Sejong entered the Renaissance on t89(!) but didn't go after Printing Press... damn, that would have been *choice*. Could have sent a diplomat to a friend and had t115 Scholars In Residence!!
I went for the National Epic to try to get the free GS before the t101 Baktun, but I missed it by 2 turns... sigh. T103 GS. Yay. Had to build the NE while I was waiting for Education, before I knew for sure if I'd hit my t90 goal or not. (Depends on AI caravans)
Had I teched Sailing, one more caravan would have gotten me Education before t90, so now I know I *can* do that in future non-exploity SV attempts.
Baktun order: t72 Great Artist for culture/money/production, t86 Great General (to secure resources), t101 Great Writer (to finish Liberty), t117 Great Scientist, then t133 Great Engineer. (For Big Ben)
On t117, or shortly thereafter, depends on when I finish Architecture, I'll be bulbing 3 GS. (points, baktun and liberty closer)
I'm hoping that I can get to Rocket Artillery on t150, based on my last run getting me to Combustion on t151 after bulbing 2 GS on t120. I'm probably going to save before I do it, just in case I miss, and go back and see what I could have gotten instead.
We'll see how it goes, but so far, were this a regular game, it would be my most successful SV attempt ever... haha. 150 beakers by t100, another personal best. Took me a while to get the 2nd and 3rd university up... had to hard-build them... not a lot of luxes to sell because I couldn't work the jungle citrus.
My biggest problem is going to be the upgrade costs for all the horsemen, CBs, warriors, and catapults... My current plan is to sell gpt for gold and break DOF with everyone one at a time in the same turn, to get all the gold and upgrade really fast... We'll see if my rocket artillery army can pull it off.
If I don't find aluminum, (highly likely given my small empire) I'm going to to just do regular artillery... should still be a personal best for that. I've decided I don't like GWB or landships as an alternative. Here's why:
GWB & Landships are 50 and 60 strength with no inherent city bonuses. Artillery are 28 strength with +200% damage vs cities. So, on offense, they're 84 strength... and they don't take damage when they attack.
Aside from the obvious mobility issues, artillery > GWB and Landships for taking cities, despite being available much sooner and not requiring oil... I dunno, that seems imbalanced. But there it is, artillery are just the most effective city attack option.
The more I stared at the tree, the more I realized that there really isn't anything good for fast conquest on land after artillery unless you can put together multiple GWB fleets, and I can't afford a ton of units with this rush tactic. I'll barely be able to buy a few of them. Plus there are the obvious rebasing concerns. I can't afford to take every city for time and happiness reasons, and GWB have a short rebase range.
But, 3 Rocket Artillery... could probably clear the map with those + cavalry in like, 20 turns.
We'll see if I can actually get that many beakers. It's only 3 more techs than Biology + Combustion. But they're 5k each. So I need 42k beakers, and with 2 GS I got 27k. So it's quite possible... but it'll be close. Then I just have to cross my fingers and hope for Aluminum.
Anyway, quite fun so far figuring out how to time all this. The GW really help me get my last liberty GS out despite opening Tradition. Opening Tradition avoided having to build monuments, which got my libraries/pyramids up much faster, for faster Education. Then, Liberty helped me finish all my buildings and improve tiles. Early Education ensures I get a GS before my target t117 baktun. If I went for a t133 bulb, I could have 5 GS, but the problem at that point is that I'm researching 32 techs... so I wouldn't finish that until t165 at the earliest. This way, I finish at t152, but I risk not getting all the way to Rocket Artillery. Hopefully my gamble will pay off.
The whole concept behind teching is wrong. Civs do not tech, people do. Throughout history technologies have been invented by private individuals then spread to others by imitation and word of mouth. Kings and lines on maps had little, if anything, to do with the process. Some cultures were more predisposed to invention than others, but their neighbors invariably gained the benefit sooner or later. You can't invent the wheel, parade about in chariots, and not have other people find out about it.
Moriarte
Immortal
- Joined
- May 10, 2012
- Messages
- 2,431
I agree that GWB is too weak for your cause. I think artillery with land ships is the perfect mix. Even though land ships are "only" 60 strength, they can pillage heal like no other unit, clearing up terrain around cities and protecting your arties. Besides, 3 land ships can attack city and pillage heal, staying safely under city fire. No downsides. 
Rocket artillery is an overkill, imo. If you can get tanks with overflow - even better.
Rocket artillery is an overkill, imo. If you can get tanks with overflow - even better.phillipwyllie
Wannabe Deity
How about making the challenge to see who can complete the tech tree the quickest? The later you leave it the better chance, but the AI's may gang up on you before then.......
Cromagnus
Deity
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- Sep 11, 2012
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- 2,272
Tanks require roughly as much teching as rocket artillery, if memory serves. Landships certainly beat cavalry as support for an artillery rush, but the limiting factor is the slow-moving, slow-attacking artillery, I think.
I evaluated all the options and I feel that if it's achievable, rockets are fastest:
Option 1) beeline artillery ASAP, something like t130-t135. Cavalry support. Cheap upgrade cost compared to other plans.
Downsides: requires horses, limited in time-to-victory by having to chew through units using artillery as ranged attack behind meat shields.
2) rocket artillery supported by cavalry on t150. Those 15 turns lost might be made up for by the fact that rocket artillery can one-shot most enemies. Cavalry are just there to take the city. One rocket per army is enough.
Downsides: aluminum, horses, running out of tech, expensive to upgrade from catapults
3) gwb plus Landships
Downside: requires too much oil, risk of cities being too far apart, expensive to upgrade Landships and buy gwb
4) Landships + artillery
Downside: requires oil (and horses along the way), delays the artillery rush by 10+ turns. Expensive to upgrade all these units.
5) kamikaze infantry rush. Shorter tech path than flight
Downsides: slow moving, requires iron to upgrade, expensive to upgrade so many units.
6) kamikaze land ship rush
Downsides: same as infantry but pillage healing to recover
7) gwb + cavs
Downsides: oil, horses, having to buy units.
All of the purchase pathways are benefited by Big Ben, mercantilism and ideology. But getting mercantilism, Big Ben and 3 pts in ideology by t150 is difficult if you're also optimizing science.
However, I may experiment with that next. It's possible you don't need good science... My previous best science run actually resulted, despite a larger beaker excess, in getting Landships later, not earlier. 4000 beakers bulbed on t130... Result; Landships on t160, vs 2000 beakers bulbed on t120 resulted in Landships on t150. Took 30 turns either way because you're researching 30 techs.
I think though that in that game, the main issue was slow AI tech rate. If the AI techs slowly, for whatever reason, you won't get as much benefit from the exploit. We'll see how it goes when I finish this run. Everyone hit the renaissance by t100, which is super early.
I evaluated all the options and I feel that if it's achievable, rockets are fastest:
Option 1) beeline artillery ASAP, something like t130-t135. Cavalry support. Cheap upgrade cost compared to other plans.
Downsides: requires horses, limited in time-to-victory by having to chew through units using artillery as ranged attack behind meat shields.
2) rocket artillery supported by cavalry on t150. Those 15 turns lost might be made up for by the fact that rocket artillery can one-shot most enemies. Cavalry are just there to take the city. One rocket per army is enough.
Downsides: aluminum, horses, running out of tech, expensive to upgrade from catapults
3) gwb plus Landships
Downside: requires too much oil, risk of cities being too far apart, expensive to upgrade Landships and buy gwb
4) Landships + artillery
Downside: requires oil (and horses along the way), delays the artillery rush by 10+ turns. Expensive to upgrade all these units.
5) kamikaze infantry rush. Shorter tech path than flight
Downsides: slow moving, requires iron to upgrade, expensive to upgrade so many units.
6) kamikaze land ship rush
Downsides: same as infantry but pillage healing to recover
7) gwb + cavs
Downsides: oil, horses, having to buy units.
All of the purchase pathways are benefited by Big Ben, mercantilism and ideology. But getting mercantilism, Big Ben and 3 pts in ideology by t150 is difficult if you're also optimizing science.
However, I may experiment with that next. It's possible you don't need good science... My previous best science run actually resulted, despite a larger beaker excess, in getting Landships later, not earlier. 4000 beakers bulbed on t130... Result; Landships on t160, vs 2000 beakers bulbed on t120 resulted in Landships on t150. Took 30 turns either way because you're researching 30 techs.
I think though that in that game, the main issue was slow AI tech rate. If the AI techs slowly, for whatever reason, you won't get as much benefit from the exploit. We'll see how it goes when I finish this run. Everyone hit the renaissance by t100, which is super early.
Cromagnus
Deity
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- Sep 11, 2012
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T165 Tanks...
It didn't go quite as planned. Still a no-brainer victory, but I messed up the timing. I didn't bulb until t125 because the only expensive tech I had left was Architecture, and Korea killed my spy, so I couldn't bulb until t125. Otherwise would have gotten it on t120 or so. Ultimately, that cost me 5 turns and didn't really add much value. Landships on t155 instead of t151, the only difference being I bulbed later.
Plus, if I knew I was going to wait that long, I could have spawned another GS naturally before bulbing a GW to finish Liberty. Which would have helped, because I ended up being 1500 beakers short of my goal. As a result I had to tech Ballistics naturally before I could Oxford bulb Combined Arms.
So, didn't get Tanks until t165. Army is 7 Tanks and 7 artillery. Spent a TON of money upgrading my knights and catapults because I didn't get Honor. Also, GE can't bulb Pentagon, it's 1250 beakers and the GE only gives 660. Not sure what controls that number but it seemed unrelated to my hammers/turn. Changed it around, increased population, worked mines for a while... still 660. What gives?
So I had to bulb Big Ben instead, and ended up one policy short of Mercantilism. (I could have gotten another natural Great Writer if I had known I was going to be needing it... oh well)
Tanks completely destroy things on t170... it's really funny. Walked right through the GW and am owning Pedro. Estimating I won't finish until t200 though just due to the sheer distance my artillery have to travel.
My conclusion after all this: Gold-purchasing > upgrading after all. Even if you go full Honor/full Liberty you need two GEs for Pentagon. Not going to happen unless you go Full Tradition, which loses you the Liberty Closer... So, it ends up being cheaper to buy units than upgrade them.
Without Honor, each catapult->artillery is like 570 gold. You can buy artillery for less than that with Big Ben, Autocracy and Mercantilism. Plus you didn't need to produce them. With Honor, you almost break even, but you have to build those units and pay maintenance costs for all those turns. Much better to be building barracks and armories instead.
With Tanks it's even worse. Even if you start with Knights, not Horsemen, as I did this time, it's still like 460 gold to upgrade. With Big Ben, Mercantilism and Autocracy, units are 73% off (25% + 15% + 33%) which makes tanks 350 gold or so to purchase. The most important thing about that though is you can sell your horse resources for all those turns instead of hanging on to them.
And, the other huge thing is that you don't end up building them prior to having the tech for Armories. So you get an extra promotion. With 4 cities, it only takes 4 turns to rush-buy a 16-unit army, and the total cash cost is roughly 5000 gold, which you can totally save up by turn 150 if you're miserly.
In retrospect, rush-buying the university was a mistake, since I missed the t90 deadline for spawning a GS before the t101 baktun anyway. This actually delayed my bulb by getting me banking too early. Instead of bulbing architecture on t124, I could have been bulbing banking on t117, and if lucky, stolen architecture too. I'm inclined to think it's better to save money, not rush-buy a university. 660 gold buys two Tanks.
Also, the fact that early science isn't critical means it was a waste to open Tradition for the free monuments. Yes it got my pyramids/libraries up faster, but it also delayed Mercantilism for far too long. The t72 baktun is totally sufficient for this.
Anyway, I may or may not attempt to do a more optimal run after I finish this one.
Should also mention that I played around with the various tech options, and Rocketry is out of reach by about 7k beakers, as it turns out. Combined Arms is cheaper, although it was still 1500 beakers out of reach. I think I can get more beakers though if I play it right.
So, the dilemma is: Should I try to get more GS via rush-buying MORE universities? (I can get another GS in a second city by t117 if I get them on t90)
Or, should I split my bulb as follows:
1) Bulb GS #1 on t85 to get Printing Press (using the Bronzeworking line) on t95, and propose Scholars in Residence
2) Bulb GS #2 on t125 once Scholars passes to get the much bigger overflow (using the Sailing line)
I think this is actually the best bet for total beaker output, but it does delay Tanks until t155. Bulbing 4 GS on t120 would get Tanks on t150, but it requires early education, rush-buying, etc.
I think the two-stage bulb is the key. Super-early Printing Press also gets you a bunch of useful techs like Engineering and Machinery and allows you to start building Armories earlier. Plus you don't have to miss out on jungle luxes and iron sales.
Furthermore, by doing it this way, you could actually start the attack run with CBs, and because of getting Machinery, take a capital or two *before* artillery/tanks. You'll get Artillery on t140, and can immediately take more cities while you wait for Tanks on t155.
This is probably the way to go. Especially if you can pull off a super-early Printing Press, like T90. Yeah... that's what I'm going to try next.
And, again, Tanks around 1100 AD are super-fun. They one-shot everything.
It didn't go quite as planned. Still a no-brainer victory, but I messed up the timing. I didn't bulb until t125 because the only expensive tech I had left was Architecture, and Korea killed my spy, so I couldn't bulb until t125. Otherwise would have gotten it on t120 or so. Ultimately, that cost me 5 turns and didn't really add much value. Landships on t155 instead of t151, the only difference being I bulbed later.
Plus, if I knew I was going to wait that long, I could have spawned another GS naturally before bulbing a GW to finish Liberty. Which would have helped, because I ended up being 1500 beakers short of my goal. As a result I had to tech Ballistics naturally before I could Oxford bulb Combined Arms.
So, didn't get Tanks until t165. Army is 7 Tanks and 7 artillery. Spent a TON of money upgrading my knights and catapults because I didn't get Honor. Also, GE can't bulb Pentagon, it's 1250 beakers and the GE only gives 660. Not sure what controls that number but it seemed unrelated to my hammers/turn. Changed it around, increased population, worked mines for a while... still 660. What gives?
So I had to bulb Big Ben instead, and ended up one policy short of Mercantilism. (I could have gotten another natural Great Writer if I had known I was going to be needing it... oh well)
Tanks completely destroy things on t170... it's really funny. Walked right through the GW and am owning Pedro. Estimating I won't finish until t200 though just due to the sheer distance my artillery have to travel.
My conclusion after all this: Gold-purchasing > upgrading after all. Even if you go full Honor/full Liberty you need two GEs for Pentagon. Not going to happen unless you go Full Tradition, which loses you the Liberty Closer... So, it ends up being cheaper to buy units than upgrade them.
Without Honor, each catapult->artillery is like 570 gold. You can buy artillery for less than that with Big Ben, Autocracy and Mercantilism. Plus you didn't need to produce them. With Honor, you almost break even, but you have to build those units and pay maintenance costs for all those turns. Much better to be building barracks and armories instead.
With Tanks it's even worse. Even if you start with Knights, not Horsemen, as I did this time, it's still like 460 gold to upgrade. With Big Ben, Mercantilism and Autocracy, units are 73% off (25% + 15% + 33%) which makes tanks 350 gold or so to purchase. The most important thing about that though is you can sell your horse resources for all those turns instead of hanging on to them.
And, the other huge thing is that you don't end up building them prior to having the tech for Armories. So you get an extra promotion. With 4 cities, it only takes 4 turns to rush-buy a 16-unit army, and the total cash cost is roughly 5000 gold, which you can totally save up by turn 150 if you're miserly.
In retrospect, rush-buying the university was a mistake, since I missed the t90 deadline for spawning a GS before the t101 baktun anyway. This actually delayed my bulb by getting me banking too early. Instead of bulbing architecture on t124, I could have been bulbing banking on t117, and if lucky, stolen architecture too. I'm inclined to think it's better to save money, not rush-buy a university. 660 gold buys two Tanks.
Also, the fact that early science isn't critical means it was a waste to open Tradition for the free monuments. Yes it got my pyramids/libraries up faster, but it also delayed Mercantilism for far too long. The t72 baktun is totally sufficient for this.
Anyway, I may or may not attempt to do a more optimal run after I finish this one.
Should also mention that I played around with the various tech options, and Rocketry is out of reach by about 7k beakers, as it turns out. Combined Arms is cheaper, although it was still 1500 beakers out of reach. I think I can get more beakers though if I play it right.
So, the dilemma is: Should I try to get more GS via rush-buying MORE universities? (I can get another GS in a second city by t117 if I get them on t90)
Or, should I split my bulb as follows:
1) Bulb GS #1 on t85 to get Printing Press (using the Bronzeworking line) on t95, and propose Scholars in Residence
2) Bulb GS #2 on t125 once Scholars passes to get the much bigger overflow (using the Sailing line)
I think this is actually the best bet for total beaker output, but it does delay Tanks until t155. Bulbing 4 GS on t120 would get Tanks on t150, but it requires early education, rush-buying, etc.
I think the two-stage bulb is the key. Super-early Printing Press also gets you a bunch of useful techs like Engineering and Machinery and allows you to start building Armories earlier. Plus you don't have to miss out on jungle luxes and iron sales.
Furthermore, by doing it this way, you could actually start the attack run with CBs, and because of getting Machinery, take a capital or two *before* artillery/tanks. You'll get Artillery on t140, and can immediately take more cities while you wait for Tanks on t155.
This is probably the way to go. Especially if you can pull off a super-early Printing Press, like T90. Yeah... that's what I'm going to try next.
And, again, Tanks around 1100 AD are super-fun. They one-shot everything.
Spoiler :
