Qsc14 - Strategy and Timelines Discussion thread

This thread is to support discussion of the Qsc14 timelines and game strategies by the players who submitted games and other members who read through the timeline webpages for the game.

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The QSC 14. Comments on strategies to win.

I have reviewed 4 plays by 1000BC. The players whose saved I have reviewed, managed to win the game or bring it to a winning position at some point in time. I will also refer to my own game which turned out to be a defeat in the end but which i believe to be winnable at the 1000BC mark.

In the following I will comment different approaches our fellow players took.

1. The early warrior
This is Cartouche Bee's (CB) game, where the player was already way ahead the Persians in 1000BC. CB attacked Xerses in as soon as he had built his 3rd town and razed that town. He made peace and got a town in exchange for peace in 2900BC. He had managed to build a town by that time and he was ahead of the Persians with 4 towns to 2. He attacked the Persians again around 1900BC and razed two towns. The war must have been tough as the two sides were about equal (Persians had less cities but they had the deity production bonus). CB got a leader and the Pyramids. CB also must have got a lot of tech as he was the most advanced player techwise in 1000BC. He had most units and was preparing to hook the iron.
A question still remains: What units did CB used in his early wars against Xerxes Warriors or Bowmen?

2. The ICS
ICS had the disadvantage that you get further behind before you get ahead. Moonsinger has the smallest territory, but she is preparing to attack Persia. She does not have Iron Working so she doesn’t know that she lacks iron. But she is preparing Chariots as well so the Horsemen alternative is open for her. She has limited knowledge of the map and she does not have a granary in Babylon. Preparations for war will take further time but the strike will be deadly for the AI.

3. The builder, warrior
I never thought DaveMcW was a builder. But he did manage to build 2 temples that already doubled culture points and every town builds one in the beginning. This might be just because of the cheap Babylonian temples but the early culture will have its advantages throughout the game. Dave’s capital is a settler factory and his following 3 cities are warrior/bowmen factories. Dave has a 500+ treasury and knows the whole continent so he can plan his attack before Persia hooks the iron. I took a similar strategy without the temple build but I did some scientific research, which Dave did not.

4. The builder, researcher
Gnik Drazil took the builder- researcher path. He built temples as well as barracks and a granary in his capital. He is the most advanced in science and takes a research path that allows him to trade with the AI. He has a small army of swords and also has spears. He is not planning to attack right now but Xerxes cannot defeat him either. He has reached a stage where he can sit and wait for better times to come. I believe he did not have time to finish the game but if he could he would have won.

Great game everyone. Comments on my comments are always appreciated.

I have reviewed several timelines and was very impressed by several, most notibly, Drazil, who seems to have a very winnable game with warriors beginning to come and a large treasury to upgrade against Persia. I realize after reading these timelines that I have much to learn. The fact is I have only played about 20 full games of Civ to completion and need to rethink some basic theories on how to manage my cities. I seem easily distracted and do not pay enough attention to detail. Are there any suggestions on how to improve on these areas from those who conquered the learning curve long ago and how they advanced beyond? Thanks again and great site cracker.

One more thing, I did not get a chance to look at CB's sav game yet, but I was wondering if there was a timeline to look at which could really be useful in learning some winning techniques. If not, maybe CB could give a brief history of what gave him a winning edge, thanks.

To Yndy:

Thanks for summarizing those 4 games. It certainly shows that there is not just one way to win.

As you can see from the chart I have the dubious distinction of finishing last. My start is a example of how one bad choice very early can cripple you. However, even in adversity we can still learn. I built in the start location and used my second warrior to attack the goody hut to the NW. 3 angry barbs showed up and killed my warrior, pillaged my mine and road and sacked my capital even though it was defended by another warrior! Not a very auspicious start. I never should have attacked the goody hut so soon or without support. Bamspeedy made this point in his website analyzing his game.

Originally posted by Yndy
ICS had the disadvantage that you get further behind before you get ahead. Moonsinger has the smallest territory, but she is preparing to attack Persia. She does not have Iron Working so she doesn’t know that she lacks iron. But she is preparing Chariots as well so the Horsemen alternative is open for her. She has limited knowledge of the map and she does not have a granary in Babylon. Preparations for war will take further time but the strike will be deadly for the AI.

Click to expand...

Thanks for reviewing my game. I think my first mistake was to assume that I could easily buy Pottery from some other civs since the little bird told me that I was on a Pangaea map (but it was actually turned out to be an isolated continent ); therefore, I initially used my 40 turns research on something else and failed to build a granary in Babylon. Without the granary, bad luck with the barbs from the hut, and no free settler or tech from the hut, I was kind of surprise to see that I was the one with the most cities comparing to other players at 1000BC. There I was sitting on the rock contemplating about the universe and waiting for a miracle of meeting someone else beside the bully Xerxes, suddenly out of no where, Shaka showed up on a little boat shortly after 1000BC. Meeting Shaka was my biggest break! I don't remember if I brought Iron Working from Shaka or research it myself, but I got Iron Working shortly after 1000BC. When the Zulu's boat almost reached the Persian's land, I traded Shaka's contact (plus my useless worldmap and some golds) to Xerxes for his worldmap (yeah, trading his worldmap to me was his biggest mistakes). After knowing the layout of the continent and the two source of irons, I was able to prevent Xerxes from hooking up his iron and got iron for myself after the first war. After the Golden Age, I hooked up iron and sent almost three dozens of swordman and about 20 horsemans at Persia. Xerxes spearmans, warriors, and archers didn't stand much of a chance against the sword of Babylon. He got a few horsemans, but a lot of warriors; I guessed he was preparing to upgrade them to the immortal later (too bad, he didn't know how to hook up to that second source of iron on the West. If he did that, I could have been history).

My second biggest break for enabling me to catch up with the rest of the world was that all other AI civs (except Shaka) were almost on the same strength. China, Japan, and India got about the same amount of land, and they were all equal in tech levels. Most importantly they were all on a different continent. That was as a perfect setup for me to play my MPP card. I got Japan to destroy India for me while I collected half of the Indian territory; Japan took the other half. Then I used the same MPP trick again and got China to destroy Japan for me. I gained half of Japanese territory and China took the other half. After that, it was just a matter of time until the final war between China and Babylon and you already know who won that war.

zagnut-yeah, on deity, you not only have more of a chance of getting barbarians, but you also don't get any combat bonus vs. barbarians like you do on lower levels. So popping huts can be very risky (some would say not even worth it) on deity unless you are expansionists. I only built 2 warriors, but my second warrior was somewhat nearby (but couldn't have attacked the barbs the same turn if needed). I could have had bad luck and had my first warrior killed, then later have my 2nd warrior killed and have my capital sacked. There are some gambles to this game. On lower levels there is less of a gamble.

Moonsinger- Yeah, ICS does usually allow more cities to be built quicker, but you lack the territory size until much later. It depends on what your goals are. Sometimes grabbing land is better (like expanding and getting that eastern iron city), other times the # of cities is better (defense, early offensive, unit support). If you build a granary right away and can build a settler every 4-6 turns, you're usually better off using OCP because of all the tiles the capital needs so early in the game. With no granary and lack many bonus resources, you're better off with ICS, IMHO (depending on the map).

In the Babylonian game i lacked unit support and that hurt me in the wars against the Persians. My 11 cities supported 44 units. I had 10 workers and i could afford only 34 military. I could have built more but my treasury was already tight. The results were that i had to declare war to diminish the number of units but then my army was too small to destroy the Persians. 34 units should have been enough but for me there were not.

Yndy

Thanks for your recap. Really got me thinking about picking a strategy and sticking to it.

My early game was a warrior, no builder, no warrior, no builder, oh I can't make up my mind. Sort of like most of my games. Didn't get time to finish so I don't know if Indecisive is a good style.

Quick question to the leaders in tech points for QSC. Did you research your techs, get lucky in goody huts or trade for tech?

I was hoping to grab some tech to trade with from the huts but I only got barbs, nothing, a map and nothing. I watched Xerxes grab Alphabet from a hut that I was 1 turn away from. After that, I just bought the ones I thought I needed with gpt to try and keep X Man from declaring war. It worked in that he never bothered me in the QSC period.