World's nicest city-OCC won on emperor

Hi!

I will write a short story about my last game where I won a one city challenge on emperor (in BTS). It was a space race victory

How many cottages do you need to get 1700+ research/per turn in one city? well none at all, this strategy is about a specialized specialist economy


settings: large (!), continents map with 9 AI. Epic speed. all option is left default except: no tribal villages and no tech trade ( i just dont like the techtrade, for me it makes the games too easy). Chosen leader Elizabeth of the english.

I have generated many starting position as I wanted to do a particular strategy based on the national park national wonder. I wanted 1-2 good food resource and as many forest as possible. I have scraped many really good starting positions (4-5 food res +lots of gold mine) just because it didnt had enough forest.

Ended up with this starting position:



I had no stone and marble so building wonders was hard but at least i didnt had to build settlers .. and so many nice forest to chop...no way i kept them all in the city radius and choped only a few outside to have the best chance they are growing so there will be something to chop later.

The two most important wonder what I needed was the pyramid and the great library. But i could build the stonhenge, the Temple of Artemis, the oracle and the Parthenon too.
My teching went this way (mentioning the key techs):
monotheism-writing-literature-civil service-education-economy-biology-medicine

I had no copper (it was badly needed when I builded the spaceship, but no one wanted to give me of course) nor iron so was very weak in the begining. (until i could build musketmen) I tried to be nice with everyone and I got into a small war only in the modern times.
I used whipping to build almost everything, with the library I could boost my research and greatperson points (unfortunetly i got priests in the begining instead of engineer or scientist) however every great person has settled in the capital except the first scientist (who builded the academy) and the engineers usually builded a new wonder)
The national wonders i have built:
National epic (a must have for this strategy)
Oxford University (must have, and usually i build it as soon as possible)
Heroic epic (not really usefull, later i had far more production what I needed)
Iron works (quite handy even if i loose my coal because of the national park)

national park (well, my strategy based upon this: with 14 forests it means 14 happy face, no pollution, 14 free specialist, with environmentalism combined with Elizabeth financial ability every forest gave 3 (or 4 next to river) commerce. And as a philosophial leader i got around 320 gp points per turn

some pics :
still long way to biology:


finally there :


This was the first game I have actually finished for a very long time, i just dont like the endgames in civ. (usually i just get to a point where I'm leading so much that i convice myself i would won from that point anyway so i just start an other game . However with one city nothing can be sure .
The endgame had a few suprise.
Checking the victory conditions: the Koreans were the most dominant, they were up to domination victory, 3 quite big empire became their vassal.
The Ethiopians were my friends, we even have defensive pact. they were the second strongest and the most advanced after me ofc ( i had the internet but got only medieval techs and animal h. for example ok there was some usefull too, the satelites in the end for exmple)

I was the first who build the apollo program and could have start to build the thrusters but i made a mistake here I concentrated all my effort to get to the space elevator wonder, but i didnt relized (until it was late) that i cannot build it (was over the 30 degree latitude ) i had two great engineers waiting to finish that wonder..

second mistake was that i have completelly neglected the espionage. close to the end I got around two attacks in every turn. the worst was when they destroyed one finished part of the sship . destroying the factories, the aluminium mine.. etc etc

There was a short war close to the end what i dont know how started with my neighbor the Koreans and all their vassals. I had modern armors and jets guarding my city so i could defend myself however i have lost the copper import and it slowed me down very badly. i could get out of this war soon and gifted my units to the Ethiopians who continued the war with the Koreans.

The UN decisions really made me mad... global civics when i got everything set as i wanted... I had to defy many of them, fortunetly i had enough happiness to do this

the global warming was also painfull, it destroyed one of my forest and strike many more tiles outside the city radius.

In the end the race was very close, now i have choped all the trees outside the city radius just to get a few extra hammer

When i get my first engine I have launched my spaceship (with only one thrusters but five casings) I didnt wanted to risk that a spy destroy something again, or get nuked just for fun ( the ethiopians used nuclear weapons in the war). it took 34 turn for the space ship to land. (when I launched the ethiopians missed only the engine but they had everything else full. later when i have checked they missed one extra part too, seems they also get spy attack from someone ) Anyway they lauched one turn b4 my victory.

While waiting for my ship to arrive i build up military, SDI defense and lots of spies just to take revenge

Here are two pics a few turn b4 the victory ( my score was 8000 something)




(unrelated:

GOTM for the Index Fórum:)

That is absolutely awesome.

Blimey - excellent strat there dude


I'#ll be trying that ol' national park thingimabob tonight

Which one of those early wonders you actually built and which ones you rushed with GE's and what years were they built? You must had great precise timing in building/rushing those since i found extremely hard to get Pyramids, Parthenon and TOA in the same city (you are not Industrious, no stone, no marble, no BFC chopping and this is Emperor right?).

I have checked the replay:
(I have used whiping whenever was possible, i got some good food resource)
2675 Stonehedge
1700 prophet
1450 Pyramyd
700 Artemis
650 Engineer
485 Oracle (quite strange no one builded it yet, i got aesthetic for this.)
305 prophet
245 Great library rushed by the engineer
110 Engineer
95 Parthenon rushed by the engineer
----
AD

70 prophet
175 merchant
295 scientist
445 merchant
610 scientist
775 scientist

I got my first scientist very late, i like to get it much sooner to build the academy. after that in the early years of caste system i always train 2-3 merchants. they give extra food so i can get faster city growth and more specialist. Later i use only scientists. When i was building the spaceship and every hammer was needed i had around 10 engineer specialist, the rest was priest or simple worker.

(btw I have to admit this wasnt the first try to win with this strategy, i have lost even with better starting positions (stone in radius, gold resourche etc). In my first actuall atempt Gandhi won a cultural victory (still dont know how he did it but a city wich wasnt in the first 3 cultural rating stoles territoy from my only city radius
At second try Gandhi was about to win a cultural victory but i didnt live to see it, got rushed by someone with a suprise attack
In an other I got conquered by Caesar and his preatorians, He brought around 20 and killed my macemen easily
Once i had to restart because was beaten with the pyramid in 1600 bc but never saw it builded b4 that. (and only the pyramid and the great library was the crucial wonders)

Mz, who were your neighbors?

I believe this also counts as a factor - to have NO Monty or Shaka or the like

The Koreans and Bismarck who became their vassal.
And I had a very strong friend, the ethiopians (they builded the apostolic palace and I always voted for them )

Wow. I am for some reason struggling with BtS and this makes my games look absolutely pathetic! Well done.

My strategy is similar but I build only pyramids and great library in the early game to try and keep the GP pool clean. I settle my engineers. I haven't been beaten to these wonders yet, but I tried experimenting with Artemis a couple of times and lost it to the AI. I sometimes try to build Hanging Gardens for GE points but the AI often gets that too.

I'm about 50% on emperor and won once on immortal so far, the usual ways to lose are:

- getting wiped out by a huge stack from the usual suspect psychos like Alex/Monty... sometimes you can divert them to attack other people by adopting their religion, sometimes not
- AI domination victory, in one game Augustus fired off 10+ nukes against Mao and his vassals then crushed them to win. Not much you can do about this one if you're on pangaea.
- AI culture victory, watch F8 and try to bribe the other AIs to attack anyone trying to pull this crap
- Endgame spy harrassment... this is annoying. keeping a couple of spies as garrison and running a couple of Counterespionage missions if you find out who is responsible helps, the spaceship sabotage missions are super expensive in EPs

In this game I was suprised how easily the Koreans get vassals. They razed one greek city on the other continent and they capitulated.
Also I have noticed there is very big dif between the ai-s. Gandhi was always super advanced, The Koreans had a big, strong empire but i could heavily out-research them with only one city (they was after biology when i was waiting for my sship to land). Ethiopians were quite advanced others hardly get to the modern era.
When they attacked me the best units were cavalries and riflemen, i was actually glad to have some great general at least as my modern armors destroyed them easily .