Now this time i hope that bug crashing me during end-game won't appear! 
0. Before the start.
This time it's tiny map and it's Apollo, the rest being the same. Still, better write it down here to prevent any confusion. So,
The goals are:
- to win the game in order to get "Just... One... More... Turn" option, and
- to "live happily ever after" afterwards, for as long "ever" as i'll be able to, while having my Colony within its borders (not expanding, not shrinking).
The start is:
- Apollo difficulty (i want relaxed mix-max play, but Soyuz proven to be WAY too easy even for that...)
- Standard pace
- Tiny map size
- Lush biome (i prefer its looks, nothing else)
- Terran planet type
- Victory conditions: all
- Time limit: off (obviously)
- Sponsor: Polystralia
- Colonists: artists
- Titanium/oil/geothermal revealed
- Free worker
- Random seed: on
- Number of players: 3 (maximum possible on tiny-size map...
)
All other settings are at their default values.
One more thing - in this game, i do save scum (with random seed on) in some situations: namely excavating and when picking up resource pods. I'll possibly be "living" with results of those activities for very long time (one guy played a single Civ2 game for TEN years, you know, famous story). Not likely i'll ever get close to that, but i still want to "squeeze" the best at all possible beginning for that colony of mine. "Happily ever after" thing, you know?
1. The start.
Got me one amazing start - after few hundreds restarts, - with some great +3 and +4 food tiles (after basic worker improvement), a little bit of a river, coastal, and with 2 Titanium tiles within workable area.
What's even better, both AI players happened to land rather late - some 20sh turns for both, - and on the other continent (there are two distinct continents on the map). And on top of it all, "their" continent has large mountain chain, while "mine" is mostly neat plain workable tiles.
Starting build order was: Old Earth Relic, then 3 more explorers, and with artifacts found by that time - built 3 settlers in nearly no time at all (combining artifacts in certain combinations, one can get +80 production per each combination made to the capital (while Settler is 95), AND corresponding artifact reward in the same time). Way before building those 3 settlers, i also got me another Settler from the corresponding virtue - this time i went for 5 virtues in Prosperity, and after that to the bottom of the Industrial tree for that mighty +0.2 health per building one.
Being Polystralia and going Apollo, i then focused on getting trade depots and trade routes up ASAP. This produced great results.
2. Turn 100.
By turn 100, i have 7 cities, Panopticon wonder already built (my favorite "tier-1" wonder), sizeable army (both opponents fluctuate around fear=3 and so far both sanctioned me, but did not declare a war), technologies for Firaxite mining and Xenomass well researched, spy headquarters built, and 3 spies happily being well into their 1st "steal energy" mission.
In terms of virtues, i have 5 early Prosperity virtues, and well into bottom part of the Industrial tree already - very next virtue will be my favorite one, which solves health problem (for my "gotta build nearly all buildings" style of play). Recently researched technology for +2 culture "tier-2" building will help it to arrive a bit sooner (and borders to grow a bit quicker).
In terms of science, i am now over 100 beakers output, and so far i am able to keep ahead of both AIs in terms of research-complete score (if only a little).
In terms of diplomacy, as mentioned above, so far AIs did not declare war. The AIs i got is Kozlov and south-american guy (why i can't ever remember his name? ><). They already managed to make some war between themselves, and then got to peace. I am expecting them declare war to me any moment, though. Their respect to me is 0...1 at all times - very early (prior to turn 50), i build 2 aquatic cities next to shores of "their" continent, and since then the only seemingly working thing which keeps them from attacking, - is my army being big enough. Each of them tried to amass few units next to one of me cities, but both times sending few units next to their small "army" made them dissipate.
My general plan was, and still is, to quickly move both aquatic cities along the shores of "their" continent, taking all water tiles (and some land ones), thus cutting their continent "off", leaving most of the "world oceans" to myself. Works well; by turn 100, it's more than half-done on one side, and nearly complete on other side of their continent. I don't touch any single tile claimed by their cities, so it's all fair-play: if they didn't like to get lots of the planet claimed by their cities early, it's their choice, isn't it. That said, South America fella made an outpost on "my" continent landmass, getting north-eastern part of it to himself. If he'll sit tight and never declare a war, then i'll let it be. But something tells me, he won't...
Anyhows, that one is land city and thus is self-contained; as long as AIs don't make any aquatic city within my planned "most of the planet gotta be mine" space, i'm quite happy camper. And quite soon, both vertical "walls" of tiles claimed by my moving aquatic cities - will be complete. After that, i'll never give them "cooperative" even if they ask, keeping my borders closed to their settlers. This is how i hope to keep quite much space for later cities - right now can't do more, fluctuating near -20 health is painful enough as it is, and i don't want to piss AIs even more by creating more cities "too close" to theirs (in their twisted - hehe - opinion). Not before i have overwhelmingly powerful air force, that is.
Speaking of war, built myself quite an army outta all the early trade routes, corresponding personality feature and virtue - both for extra domestic trade efficiency, - and Warp Spires in my cities. By turn 100, it's some ~5 marines, ~5 gunners, a melee attack ship, and 2 submarines. But the main force will sure be my Air Force for this game.
Because i already got me Sky Chitin and Xenomass Bathhouse! On a tiny map, this is uber power: +3 range air units who do +50% combat power at ALL times (on top of all their other upgrades), and which heal to 100% in any city in one turn? Rather unbeatable, if you'd ask me.
Speaking of artifact rewards, so far i got me 4 Old Earth rewards (Xenomass Bathhouse, Warp Spire, Drone Command and Frontier Stadium), one mixed reward (+50% worker build speed), and one alien (for +50% strength to air units). The latter was made, interestingly, with just TWO alien artifacts and one Old Earth artifact, combined! Both alien ones were exactly Sky Chitin type, though. Was luck, not even save-scamming for it (other than ensuring i _get_ some artifact from a pillaged nest). And with all that, i still have 6 more Old Earth artifacts sitting in my Library. Better than i hoped! That said, the map does not have any single Progenitor site. The awesome +2 sight range upgrade will remain out of reach... As will "nobody can spy on you", a.k.a. -1 intrigue per turn in all cities. Well, at least opponents won't get any of those, too!
And as for Alien Nests, i have 4 of them within my claimed territorry now, one more i can claim any time by buying its tile - but i don't do it. The hope is to see some Worm eventually spawning from that "wild" nest, those leave their skeletons when killed, from which more Alien artifacts can be found. I could get 4 more Alien artifacts outta "captured" into my territory nests right away, but i keep them to continuosly improve my "relations" with aliens - so far managed to generally stay "in the green" despite pillaging 3 other alien nests and occasionally killing alien unit in melee. Submarines are doing great job against aliens, so far. Heartily recommend!
In terms of affinity score, i am at level 3 both Supremacy and Harmony, with Purity lagging behind at level 1, for now. Both opponents are also level 3 in their highest affinity, so thus far they don't have any military-tech advantage over me. Hopefully i'll build lots of "cheap" Jets before i get to affinity=6 (which upgrades them to be more expensive to build), alas so far desire to make "more buildings" in cities dominates my play.
In terms of overall score, for the first hundred turns, i managed to stay well ahead of both AIs' scores - that is, my score is higher than their scores added together. This makes me hope - with basic trade routes all established and cities coming to size = 10 one after another now, which gives one more extra trade route, - that from this point onward, i'll only increase the score lead.
In terms of end-game land improvement, it is very sad that there are no "rich" oil deposits on the map. All spots i got are strictly +2 oil per tile. And there aren't many of those, too... Satellites to improve the land will be really, really scarce. It'll take HUGE time to improve all the land and all the ocean with a mix of strategic and common resources, - which i love to do with Orbital Fabricators and Weather Controllers during end-game. But hey, so what, i got all the time i need (hopefully, this time ). So with this in mind, all the above was achieved with only a few non-resource tiles improved near my capital, plus just one non-resource hill tile improved to a mine next to one other city, and the rest of lands and oceans remaining non-imroved (other than tiles already having some resource). This certainly decreases output of my cities, but i feel i can make it through even despite this significant decrease of productivity. Polystralia's mighty trade route skills are _that_ powerful indeed, when used at their peak potency.
P.S. I once again feel some urge to go on and do the game, now that i have every basic need solved and became able to create mighty air force in very short order should i want to. Once again, the desire to find out "how it all will turn out to be" is... present. Granted, with only two AIs and general stupidity of AI in this game, this is more boredom than anything else. On the other hand, it makes me feel unusually calm when playing CIV:BE the way i do it - without any rush, without any "effort" to "beat the game" (i know i will, just doing what i like to do in the game for pleasure), or "complete the playthrough" by certain date. Quite a way to waste free time, so why not?
To be - some day - continued.
0. Before the start.
This time it's tiny map and it's Apollo, the rest being the same. Still, better write it down here to prevent any confusion. So,
The goals are:
- to win the game in order to get "Just... One... More... Turn" option, and
- to "live happily ever after" afterwards, for as long "ever" as i'll be able to, while having my Colony within its borders (not expanding, not shrinking).
The start is:
- Apollo difficulty (i want relaxed mix-max play, but Soyuz proven to be WAY too easy even for that...)
- Standard pace
- Tiny map size
- Lush biome (i prefer its looks, nothing else)
- Terran planet type
- Victory conditions: all
- Time limit: off (obviously)
- Sponsor: Polystralia
- Colonists: artists
- Titanium/oil/geothermal revealed
- Free worker
- Random seed: on
- Number of players: 3 (maximum possible on tiny-size map...
)All other settings are at their default values.
One more thing - in this game, i do save scum (with random seed on) in some situations: namely excavating and when picking up resource pods. I'll possibly be "living" with results of those activities for very long time (one guy played a single Civ2 game for TEN years, you know, famous story). Not likely i'll ever get close to that, but i still want to "squeeze" the best at all possible beginning for that colony of mine. "Happily ever after" thing, you know?
1. The start.
Got me one amazing start - after few hundreds restarts, - with some great +3 and +4 food tiles (after basic worker improvement), a little bit of a river, coastal, and with 2 Titanium tiles within workable area.
What's even better, both AI players happened to land rather late - some 20sh turns for both, - and on the other continent (there are two distinct continents on the map). And on top of it all, "their" continent has large mountain chain, while "mine" is mostly neat plain workable tiles.
Starting build order was: Old Earth Relic, then 3 more explorers, and with artifacts found by that time - built 3 settlers in nearly no time at all (combining artifacts in certain combinations, one can get +80 production per each combination made to the capital (while Settler is 95), AND corresponding artifact reward in the same time). Way before building those 3 settlers, i also got me another Settler from the corresponding virtue - this time i went for 5 virtues in Prosperity, and after that to the bottom of the Industrial tree for that mighty +0.2 health per building one.
Being Polystralia and going Apollo, i then focused on getting trade depots and trade routes up ASAP. This produced great results.
2. Turn 100.
By turn 100, i have 7 cities, Panopticon wonder already built (my favorite "tier-1" wonder), sizeable army (both opponents fluctuate around fear=3 and so far both sanctioned me, but did not declare a war), technologies for Firaxite mining and Xenomass well researched, spy headquarters built, and 3 spies happily being well into their 1st "steal energy" mission.
In terms of virtues, i have 5 early Prosperity virtues, and well into bottom part of the Industrial tree already - very next virtue will be my favorite one, which solves health problem (for my "gotta build nearly all buildings" style of play). Recently researched technology for +2 culture "tier-2" building will help it to arrive a bit sooner (and borders to grow a bit quicker).
In terms of science, i am now over 100 beakers output, and so far i am able to keep ahead of both AIs in terms of research-complete score (if only a little).
In terms of diplomacy, as mentioned above, so far AIs did not declare war. The AIs i got is Kozlov and south-american guy (why i can't ever remember his name? ><). They already managed to make some war between themselves, and then got to peace. I am expecting them declare war to me any moment, though. Their respect to me is 0...1 at all times - very early (prior to turn 50), i build 2 aquatic cities next to shores of "their" continent, and since then the only seemingly working thing which keeps them from attacking, - is my army being big enough. Each of them tried to amass few units next to one of me cities, but both times sending few units next to their small "army" made them dissipate.
My general plan was, and still is, to quickly move both aquatic cities along the shores of "their" continent, taking all water tiles (and some land ones), thus cutting their continent "off", leaving most of the "world oceans" to myself. Works well; by turn 100, it's more than half-done on one side, and nearly complete on other side of their continent. I don't touch any single tile claimed by their cities, so it's all fair-play: if they didn't like to get lots of the planet claimed by their cities early, it's their choice, isn't it. That said, South America fella made an outpost on "my" continent landmass, getting north-eastern part of it to himself. If he'll sit tight and never declare a war, then i'll let it be. But something tells me, he won't...
Anyhows, that one is land city and thus is self-contained; as long as AIs don't make any aquatic city within my planned "most of the planet gotta be mine" space, i'm quite happy camper. And quite soon, both vertical "walls" of tiles claimed by my moving aquatic cities - will be complete. After that, i'll never give them "cooperative" even if they ask, keeping my borders closed to their settlers. This is how i hope to keep quite much space for later cities - right now can't do more, fluctuating near -20 health is painful enough as it is, and i don't want to piss AIs even more by creating more cities "too close" to theirs (in their twisted - hehe - opinion). Not before i have overwhelmingly powerful air force, that is. Speaking of war, built myself quite an army outta all the early trade routes, corresponding personality feature and virtue - both for extra domestic trade efficiency, - and Warp Spires in my cities. By turn 100, it's some ~5 marines, ~5 gunners, a melee attack ship, and 2 submarines. But the main force will sure be my Air Force for this game.
Because i already got me Sky Chitin and Xenomass Bathhouse! On a tiny map, this is uber power: +3 range air units who do +50% combat power at ALL times (on top of all their other upgrades), and which heal to 100% in any city in one turn? Rather unbeatable, if you'd ask me.
Speaking of artifact rewards, so far i got me 4 Old Earth rewards (Xenomass Bathhouse, Warp Spire, Drone Command and Frontier Stadium), one mixed reward (+50% worker build speed), and one alien (for +50% strength to air units). The latter was made, interestingly, with just TWO alien artifacts and one Old Earth artifact, combined! Both alien ones were exactly Sky Chitin type, though. Was luck, not even save-scamming for it (other than ensuring i _get_ some artifact from a pillaged nest). And with all that, i still have 6 more Old Earth artifacts sitting in my Library. Better than i hoped! That said, the map does not have any single Progenitor site. The awesome +2 sight range upgrade will remain out of reach... As will "nobody can spy on you", a.k.a. -1 intrigue per turn in all cities. Well, at least opponents won't get any of those, too!
And as for Alien Nests, i have 4 of them within my claimed territorry now, one more i can claim any time by buying its tile - but i don't do it. The hope is to see some Worm eventually spawning from that "wild" nest, those leave their skeletons when killed, from which more Alien artifacts can be found. I could get 4 more Alien artifacts outta "captured" into my territory nests right away, but i keep them to continuosly improve my "relations" with aliens - so far managed to generally stay "in the green" despite pillaging 3 other alien nests and occasionally killing alien unit in melee. Submarines are doing great job against aliens, so far. Heartily recommend!
In terms of affinity score, i am at level 3 both Supremacy and Harmony, with Purity lagging behind at level 1, for now. Both opponents are also level 3 in their highest affinity, so thus far they don't have any military-tech advantage over me. Hopefully i'll build lots of "cheap" Jets before i get to affinity=6 (which upgrades them to be more expensive to build), alas so far desire to make "more buildings" in cities dominates my play.
In terms of overall score, for the first hundred turns, i managed to stay well ahead of both AIs' scores - that is, my score is higher than their scores added together.
This makes me hope - with basic trade routes all established and cities coming to size = 10 one after another now, which gives one more extra trade route, - that from this point onward, i'll only increase the score lead.In terms of end-game land improvement, it is very sad that there are no "rich" oil deposits on the map. All spots i got are strictly +2 oil per tile. And there aren't many of those, too... Satellites to improve the land will be really, really scarce. It'll take HUGE time to improve all the land and all the ocean with a mix of strategic and common resources, - which i love to do with Orbital Fabricators and Weather Controllers during end-game. But hey, so what, i got all the time i need (hopefully, this time
). So with this in mind, all the above was achieved with only a few non-resource tiles improved near my capital, plus just one non-resource hill tile improved to a mine next to one other city, and the rest of lands and oceans remaining non-imroved (other than tiles already having some resource). This certainly decreases output of my cities, but i feel i can make it through even despite this significant decrease of productivity. Polystralia's mighty trade route skills are _that_ powerful indeed, when used at their peak potency.P.S. I once again feel some urge to go on and do the game, now that i have every basic need solved and became able to create mighty air force in very short order should i want to. Once again, the desire to find out "how it all will turn out to be" is... present. Granted, with only two AIs and general stupidity of AI in this game, this is more boredom than anything else. On the other hand, it makes me feel unusually calm when playing CIV:BE the way i do it - without any rush, without any "effort" to "beat the game" (i know i will, just doing what i like to do in the game for pleasure), or "complete the playthrough" by certain date. Quite a way to waste free time, so why not?
To be - some day - continued.
