Ronald's Diplo Race

Finally I got a great map with an earlt settler and the SGL for masonry:

Setting
Standard map, pangea, warm, wet, 5 billion years
Civ: Russia
Opponents: 6 scienitific civs (I thought I selected 7 but I must have a mistake when I started mapfinder. I only found out when I was desperately searching the map for the 7th civ. A quick look at F10 told me that there were only 6 opponents, but the map was soooo nice I continued anyway.

Here is the start:



I popped a settler in 3750 BC founded St. Petersburg in 3500 BC and researched masonry in 3150 BC and got my first SGL:



The only two AA techs I researched were masonry and philosophy (free tech Republic) in 2170 BC, everything else was coming from huts. I had 8 scouts popping them like mad and in 1950 BC I entered the middle ages:



My free tech was Theology, so I started researching education (with the five libraries, research was down to 12 turns and with further inprovements it took 10 turns.

The only real bad thing about this map is the lack of luxury resources. I only had one near. I had to devote six workers early on (2 sets of 3) to connect 4 more resources (it took ages). Only when the second luxury was connected I could research at 100%

Here is my QSC statistic:

13 cities
59 population
13 granaries (pyramids)
1 marketplace
3 temples
10 libraries
6 universities
1 cathedral
20 workers
1 scout
pyramids, mausoleum, copernicus
I am in my GA (triggered my bilding mausoleum and copernicus) and one turn away from discovering Physics



I entered the IA in 610 BC
My free tech was Industrialization. I started to research sanitation to build a hospital in Moscow. The impact is huge. By growing Moscow from 12 to size 30, the sience output rose from 206 to 377.



In 10 AD I was 1 turn away from discovering Refining.
Here is a snapshot of the center of my empire:



Most of the IA techs I could research in 4 turns (electricity, replacable parts and refining being the exception).

ToE was used to get Atomic Theorie and Electronics. My free MA tech (not that it matters) was Nuclear Power.

The vote for UN was held and everybody but one was voting for Catherine:
Diplo victory in 310 AD

Some afterthoughts:
The most difficult decision throughout the game is finding the right balance between growing the empire and having high production. The pace is soo high, ther is no time to consolidate the empire. I am not sure that I made the right decisions, but I am very satisfied with the result.
Now I am curious how Sir Pleb's attempt went.

That's a very impressive game.....and write-up, Ronald! Congratulations!

A few questions:

1. Were you concerned when you popped Writing that you might pop Philosophy BEFORE Code of Laws and thus miss out on the free Republic tech?.........or did you figure you would just pop Republic later in that case?

2. You presumably determined that it was more advantageous to "detour" to Sanitation in order to substantially cut back your # turns/tech rate instead of staying on the "Required Techs" "Main Line" route?

3. Did you "Tweak" the other AI's (i.e. Get MA's while warring with UN opponent) to ensure UN vote?

EMan said:

That's a very impressive game.....and write-up, Ronald! Congratulations!

A few questions:

1. Were you concerned when you popped Writing that you might pop Philosophy BEFORE Code of Laws and thus miss out on the free Republic tech?.........or did you figure you would just pop Republic later in that case?

2. You presumably determined that it was more advantageous to "detour" to Sanitation in order to substantially cut back your # turns/tech rate instead of staying on the "Required Techs" "Main Line" route?

3. Did you "Tweak" the other AI's (i.e. Get MA's while warring with UN opponent) to ensure UN vote?

Click to expand...

1). Right after popping writing I started researching philosophy by hand, so no risk
2). With the science output I had at that time, I needed sanitation (without that I would have need appro. 8 turns longer, resulting in net 4 turns longer) If I would have had a higher science output, I could have skipped it (room for somebody else to improve my time)
3) I only signed MPPs and RoPs with everybody (they were all gracious, I did not see the need for a war and it was not necessary)

Let me get this straight as this might be useful in my games...
If you are researching philo you cannot pop it?
If you cannot , is it true for other techs?
and if you can, how does you researching help protect you?

LulThyme said:

Let me get this straight as this might be useful in my games...
If you are researching philo you cannot pop it?
If you cannot , is it true for other techs?
and if you can, how does you researching help protect you?

Click to expand...

That's true, for Philosophy and all other techs, apart from the exception. The exception is when the tech you're researching is the only remaining Ancient age choice. When this happens you can pop it even when researching it.

Ronald said:

1). Right after popping writing I started researching philosophy by hand, so no risk

Click to expand...

Does that mean you:
Hoped you would Pop Code Of Laws BEFORE you finished researching Philosophy AND if not, you would take the "Free Tech" and hope to Pop Republic later?

And as an Addendum to Dianthus' Post: ".....because you can ONLY Pop an Ancient Age Tech".

Very impressive time indeed. In my runs the value of sanitation hasn't been that obvious, but since I took 18 turns longer, I guess I have had time to further develop the rest of the empire to compensate.

EMan said:

Does that mean you:
Hoped you would Pop Code Of Laws BEFORE you finished researching Philosophy AND if not, you would take the "Free Tech" and hope to Pop Republic later?

And as an Addendum to Dianthus' Post: ".....because you can ONLY Pop an Ancient Age Tech".

Click to expand...

It seems to me, if you have a pretty good number of huts left, I would delay philo indefinetly until I popped Code of Laws.
Is this how its done?

EMan said:

Does that mean you:
Hoped you would Pop Code Of Laws BEFORE you finished researching Philosophy AND if not, you would take the "Free Tech" and hope to Pop Republic later?

And as an Addendum to Dianthus' Post: ".....because you can ONLY Pop an Ancient Age Tech".

Click to expand...

If I would not had popped CoL before finishing philosophy I would have simply stopped research (set science slider to 0) 1 turn before getting phil and start again after popping Col. The risk is just loosing a few turns.

Having read Sir Pleb's finishing date of 210 AD, I am wondering what I can do to improve my date.

My to do list:

1) Reject any map with less than 3 luxuries relatively near by
2) Build collossus
3) Don't go for sanitation
4) Spend more time on micromanaging

Anybody having more ideas? Additional input welcome.

Ronald

Ronald said:

Anybody having more ideas?

Click to expand...

5. Get VERY Lucky with SGL's/GH's/Luxuries
6. Study SirPleb's write-up....and get more ideas!
7. Keep your score as high as possible, in case of a Tie-breaker!
8. Pay-Off superslug to BAN one of SirPleb's tactics, thus rejecting his game into the HOF!
(Just kidding, of course.........SirPleb & LadyPleb, I consider to be good friends!.........BTW, YES, he really is as amazing in Real Life as he appears on HOF/GOTM/COTM, wherever!)

Heck, you're only 8 turns behind.......4, if you can eliminate the need for Sanitation......so to speak!

P.s. @Moonsinger (See Below): You could be Milking those cows!?

Ronald said:

I popped a settler in 3750 BC founded St. Petersburg in 3500 BC and researched masonry in 3150 BC and got my first SGL:

Click to expand...

Wow, look at all those cows on the beautiful meadow!

EMan said:

8. Pay-Off superslug to BAN one of SirPleb's tactics, thus rejecting his game into the HOF!

Click to expand...

:shakehead :thumbdown That's not a legal HOF tactic this month.

EMan said:

SirPleb & LadyPleb, I consider to be good friends!

Click to expand...

And LadyPleb thanks you for that title, she enjoys it enormously!

Uhhh, whos LadyPleb?


So what happens if Philosophy is your last Age tech? Can you get a MA tech for free?


Edit:
Answered my own question, yes, this works as expected. I just ended up with Education after the turn going to MA.

Not really much of a downside, you may get chivalry for your free age tech, but you will definately get education or invention depending which you choose. For those interested in the timing, your philosophy tech is last, so if you get theology or invention, you can definately get education or gunpowder respectively.

Only question is, does getting education or gunpowder for free make up for having to research republic and the loss of time where you would be in republic while waiting to get all the other AA techs.

Now that is an interesting thought. Getting Education or Gunpowder before 2000 BC would be amazing. Of course, Republic would have to come next and then the anarchy comes later and likely lasts longer.

Smirk said:

Only question is, does getting education or gunpowder for free make up for having to research republic and the loss of time where you would be in republic while waiting to get all the other AA techs.

Click to expand...

I don't think it is worth:
- Anarchy in AA does not hurt (no own research, just popping huts)
- Anarchy in MA does hurt
- Money saved in AA can be used to buy libraries as soon as you are in a Republic
- in MA you will run a deficit or your research is slow, if you still in despotism, you can't buy libraries

Anyone other thoughts?

Ronald

If the time taken to research Republic+Anarchy, is less than the time it would take to research the tech (Education/Gunpowder), then it's worth it.
I suspect that in most cases, it won't be.

Early Republic (pre-2000BC, even ~3000BC if very lucky ) is going to far outweigh Republic only in early MA.