Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
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Yeah, that can occasionally happen. If Washington or Hiawatha are in the game, they will usually city spam the map to death.
[BNW] Old-school Babylon NC-first opening
- Thread starter Martin Alvito
- Start date
Could I see some pics of some of the games that you've played with this start? It just seems like a very bad BO to me. I play on Deity and I mean I don't see the problem in hard-building Settlers, getting to 4 bases and then growing like crazy. This build just seems like it's begging to screw you over as all of your land is taken from right under your nose. I really don't get why you would put off producing Settlers for so long.
What is your average win turn using this build? My personal baseline is turn 270 since all of my science wins have come under that turn number so far. I'm not saying that that's an amazing feat or anything, that's just the absolute latest that it's taken me to win a science game as any random civ. I realize that plenty of people can post better numbers but I don't tryhard enough to optimize things I guess. I'm just wondering if this is like actually good or if you're making a big fuss over nothing. I've personally never struggled to get my cities going just by producing my Settlers the good old-fashioned way.
What is your average win turn using this build? My personal baseline is turn 270 since all of my science wins have come under that turn number so far. I'm not saying that that's an amazing feat or anything, that's just the absolute latest that it's taken me to win a science game as any random civ. I realize that plenty of people can post better numbers but I don't tryhard enough to optimize things I guess. I'm just wondering if this is like actually good or if you're making a big fuss over nothing. I've personally never struggled to get my cities going just by producing my Settlers the good old-fashioned way.
EscapedGoat
Warlord
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- Dec 4, 2005
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- 204
Like the title says it's an adaptation of an old starting gambit where you used to rush philosophy, build the NC then buy 2-3 settlers... the main concept is not really about buying settlers, but the fast NC and only then expand to four cities. Buying settlers just happens to be the fastest way to "catch up" (but not really viable sadly anymore to the same degree). Works absolutely best with Babylon for obvious reasons.
If it's any good? well, it's the fastest way to education for sure. A Babylonian pop 8 capital with academy and NC is turning out 39 science a turn from around turn 50... That's the same science you can get from 4 size 6 cities with libraries for a fraction of the cost and much earlier.
Of course there are problems like you need a good starting location with lots of food and production, and the obvious problem that the good land might be taken by turn 50, but it's not an opening for every situation. On some starts, there is absolutely no problem to found 3 quality cities in the turns 50-70 on deity even on Pangea. Luck of the draw where you spawn really.
I've won a turn 208 Deity Science victory where i opened this way in BNW, my best in G&K was around the same finishing time.... if that's due to the opening, crazy good start (Desert folklore, Petra, mountain) or mass research agreements, no war etc. is another matter, but it's certainly competitive if the land allows you to settle the 3 other cities anyway.
Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
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I don't keep saves on hand, so I played one through Public Schools. Still struggling to wrap my head around the Renaissance after skipping G&K; not used to trying to push growth this hard.
Better play (as EscapedGoat suggests) will finish faster.
Screenshot 1: Start. Above average start but not spectacular. Moved off river to pick up the Gems, also want those Cows for the Academy. I get the
lost to Water Mill back from irrigating the river hill I started on anyway, but lack of Hydro Plant will probably suck in the late game.Screenshot 2: Turn 54, NC complete. This was actually somewhat slow for this start. Barb camps were throwing units at me from every direction, squeezed a Warrior into build order to compensate. Went Scout -> Scout -> Worker -> Shrine as I've mentioned elsewhere. Pantheon in this start was junk (growth), so
isn't happening. Plan to accept religion from Morocco, should help keep him off my back.Screenshot 3: Turn 94, Education complete. Uni rushed in capital. Have severe case of broke, hard building in cities 2&3, rushing in 4. No sense dropping them in early when I can't fill them anyway. Plan to get infected by Morocco working, leads to DoF shortly thereafter. Have a couple distant DoFs as well.
Also did one odd thing along the way: hard built all Settlers and rushed Workers once planted since the city locations were so distant. Seemed to make more sense under the circumstances.
Screenshot 4: Turn 149, Scientific Theory complete. Obviously struggled to get here.
and 
are problems. Didn't grow fast enough, no Tithe, only have one ally (Mercantile) due to junk CS quests, yada yada yada.Long story short, the start will lead to a winning position if executed properly. Never claimed it was strictly optimal. I doubt you can beat Poland's results from hammering out Rationalism at light speed, but this should at least be competitive given the right start and better midgame play than I displayed.
Martin Alvito
Real men play SMAC
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Tried this today buy I settled my cities so far apart I couldn't really run trade routes between them early. Had to do it because I spawned in the middle of Pangea and the area was really for expansions - a lot of jungle and zero luxuries. The cities didn't grow early enough because of it. I would be getting away with it but Alexander went absolutely mental. He expanded 7 times before I had all 4 cities up and just kept doing it. He was constantly warring (successfully killed 2 Civs) but still had 50 tourism and was eventually ahead in the space race. I don't really understand what happened, I've never seen anything like it in the last 200 hours. It was like he was Deity and everyone else was on Settler.
I have a couple questions about Great Scientists. Where do I plant academies? I plant them until I research Public Schools, right? Should I focus them on one city? Can they be razed and repaired?
I have a couple questions about Great Scientists. Where do I plant academies? I plant them until I research Public Schools, right? Should I focus them on one city? Can they be razed and repaired?
joshua43214
King
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- Mar 21, 2012
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You get the GS when you research writing, so you can't use it to bulb writing.
The major difference between deity and lower level play for this strat is that you will not get any RA's after the industrial era so you have to hard tech everything. So yes, save those GS's cause you have to hard tech the entire atomic and info eras...
Also if you do not plant that first GS, then you are playing a different strat.
Cromagnus
Deity
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It's still feasible to buy the settlers if you can get an early DoF or two. Or at least 2 of them maybe. Early DoF require the right civ to be near you though.
joshua43214
King
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It's still feasible to buy the settlers if you can get an early DoF or two. Or at least 2 of them maybe. Early DoF require the right civ to be near you though.
If your not getting an early DoF, your not scouting enough. I always get 1, I almost always get 2, and very commonly get 3 before ~T66.
I depend on these DoF's to get buy settlers/libraries just like in Vanilla and GnK
Cromagnus
Deity
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Yeah, although it's a double-edged sword. It locks me out of declaring war for 50 turns without paying a pretty big diplo hit for attacking a friend. Maybe it's my playstyle, but I almost always find myself wanting to declare war on a neighbor before turn 100. Of course, this is when I'm not going for a turtle science victory. The problem is, I'm in the habit now of almost always accepting DoF. It's kind of a knee-jerk reaction that I end up regretting sometimes.
joshua43214
King
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Yeah, although it's a double-edged sword. It locks me out of declaring war for 50 turns without paying a pretty big diplo hit for attacking a friend. Maybe it's my playstyle, but I almost always find myself wanting to declare war on a neighbor before turn 100. Of course, this is when I'm not going for a turtle science victory. The problem is, I'm in the habit now of almost always accepting DoF. It's kind of a knee-jerk reaction that I end up regretting sometimes.
Well...
maybe this is not the tread for you
Starting a game with the intention of an SV means you do not DoW your neighbor. Building an army is a massive waste of resources in a science victory. You just want the bare minimum to fend off your neighbor. For most maps this is 4-7 units depending on playstyle and neighborhood.
That said, I often do get tired of looking and my units collecting dust and DoW someone later in the game just to make the game more exciting. But any war at all delays winning.
I tried this strategy today and while I made some rather bad mistakes, I still managed to finish the NC on turn 64. First, for some reason I thought I was supposed to build the library and then the GL and use the free tech to get Philosophy. Yet after I finished the library and started the GL it dawned on me that the GL didn't make sense on deity. By that time I was already locked in (I was playing on Immortal Emperor) so I took the risk and managed to get it built.
I also found myself on a small continent with no city states and a very small amount of goody huts, so I didn't have the money to purchase settlers and ended up hand building them. My landmass was large enough for three cities total.
One thing that I didn't realize was that an Academy will still treat iron as worked. I had iron appear where I'd put my Academy, yet my capitol considered it as available. I didn't realize that was the case.
It's a fun strategy and one I'd like to try again sometime, only without the horrible mistakes.
I also found myself on a small continent with no city states and a very small amount of goody huts, so I didn't have the money to purchase settlers and ended up hand building them. My landmass was large enough for three cities total.
One thing that I didn't realize was that an Academy will still treat iron as worked. I had iron appear where I'd put my Academy, yet my capitol considered it as available. I didn't realize that was the case.
It's a fun strategy and one I'd like to try again sometime, only without the horrible mistakes.
Crudgington
Chieftain
Well I tried this strategy and took 50 turns off my best SV finish on Emperor. Did it by 320, and I know I could have done it quicker but I still managed to get a few early-ish wonders as well(HG and HS). As someone mentioned, it gives a great platform to go on and attempt other victories. I held back on the last piece of the space ship and pressed on, by the time the nearest AI civ was threatening SV I had 29 votes in the DV. I had the biggest army, but no time for a world tour, and my culture was very healthy.
I guess its time to move up to immortal.
I guess its time to move up to immortal.
homegrown
Missionary of Sorenism
Where you'll never be able to get GL again.
Which is really quite sad, because on Imm/Diety when you start out so far behind, a quick way to start closing the gap would be incredibly op. I do ok on immortal winning most games, catching up sometime in the Renn Era usually. But diety (no wins yet), I'm still behind at Radio.
