Aerinon: First HoF attempts;

[AutomatedTeller]

yeah - build rates are a big problem on chieftain, but on warlord, it's not so bad. And I always play with barbs on the lower levels, so I can train my AC's to Elite status before wars

Heck, I've been known to build cities for the AI at that level!!

 

[Aerinon]

Full Report

My final date: 1610 AD. Not bad for my first 20K game ever. Fifth on the table unless better games are submitted this update. (That happened to my first game on this thread.)

As mentioned previously, the start location for the capital was excellent, but the rest was very jungle-ly. Compounded with few resources, expansion and fast tech was difficult for me to achieve. (I think I don't build enough workers.) My second town shared a cow from the capital to make a four-turn settler factory. (Almost all settlers were produced from there.) Here's a shot of the empire early on at 550 BC.



The nearest Iron is just inside Ottoman lands, and you can see that there are some military builds going on to help my acquisition of it. The gems in the mountain range are in the process of being hooked up, and near the eastern settler a source of dyes will be found nearby Russian lands in the black.

AA strategy: Build Temple, then Colossus, trade for Masonry, use pyramids as prebuild for Great Library. Hope to catch other wonders as needed.

Research was extremely tough early on, after getting alphabet and writing, I saw that I had to get literature soon so that the GL pre-build could be timed correctly. Used philosophy's free tech to get it. Then researched up to republic, revolted. Traded for a large majority of techs I think I had to research Math, Construction, and Currency, and Map Making on my own.

The capital from the same time period:



For my free tech, I get Engineering which is nice so that I can use trebs instead of catapults. I focus first building west toward the Ottoman empire and snag Spices and puts me in an excellent position to take the iron. Bowmen and trebs are built. (I'm sure I changed some of those builds, so ignore them in the next shot.)



Beelining along to Shakespeare's, I build my so-called "Stack of Doom" and invade the pathetic Ottoman empire. This is my first time in a long time I've actually had to resort to an artillery/archer stack to acquire iron. (Need it for those railroads eventually.)



The Ottomans crumble surprisingly easy. A late influx of MI's finishes the job and the Ottomans are reduced to three cities (after gifting me three of them for peace) I have sufficient culture and garrisons that culture flips are low risk, so I keep everything. After Shakespeare's I finally achieve 4 turn research for the rest of the MA, and hit the IA.

In the IA, I pick up Medicine as my free tech. Then get Steam and Industrialization. I pick up the optional Economics and Navigation next (as both wonders there are either equal or better for their Culture per shield than the IA wonders) Then I bee-line for Sci Method and Replaceable Parts, for ToE and so that I can focus on the main branch of technology. However, some techs refuse to come in under 5 turns.

The industrial empire:



The capital with railroads and max working pop:



Only 6 shields shy of the magic one hundred. Oh well, that won't increase till the modern age.

With replaceable parts in, I decide I need more sci farms to keep up research in the modern age. The war with Persia begins with Guerrilla (upgraded from ancient Bowmen), Infantry, and Artillery. (No, I never did research Mil. Tradition.) Persia manages to raze a city (a worthless costal town that flipped to me from the Ottoman before the iron war) and I turn the area into a killzone fishing for some MGLs. None ever appear in this entire game robbing me of the chance to get the Heroic Epic ever. The war with Persia:



(I forget to mention at some point I attacked the Ottomans again to secure another source of Dyes because those evil Russians took my only source via culture after the end of the first Ottoman war. Invading Persia provided my empire with both Furs and Wines which made my job so much easier.)

The Modern age: I finally bothered with the Sci civ slingshot at the end of the IA, figuring that my position was fairly supreme. I couldn't use Persia because of the war, but the Ottomans, the Germans, and the Russians all got there. They got three different techs, and none of them were willing to part with their monopolies even for everything I possessed. (Probably the first monopoly they had all game.) I let myself advance and got the fourth tech. I then traded for theirs. Built the UN with an SGL and began using SETI as a prebuild. My research rate was satisfactory as I'd get all the culture techs long before I could build them all. Thus I was going to play peaceful the rest of the game.

This was not to be, as I had forgotten to reinforce a city near the Russian border with a defender. The Russians used a Knight? to sneak attack me. What followed was a mass upgrade of infantry to Mech Inf and a march on their capital to deny them rubber and get me incense as punishment for their audacity to attack my peaceful realm. The Russians were sufficiently chastised, and the international community stayed quiet for the rest of the game.

The short but effective eastern campaign:



The Persians I left in the game as a OCC next to the 2CC Ottomans. The American were backwards only achieving the IA because I forgot they weren't SCI while preparing for a slingshot. I was left with a nice Demographic picture:



Analysis (Hindsight):

I finally figured out how to maximize culture using SGLs properly. My first two uses on the ToA and Leonardo's were certainly not the best I could have done. Leo's was a particular disaster. I had started Copernicus, but when I got the SGL for Steam power I immediately switched and rushed Leo's. And started Copernicus over from scratch (what was I thinking? ). ToA wasn't so bad, as only had a turn or two of production in the queue, but I could probably have snagged MoM first and then ToA with the SGL within a few more turns had I thought it through properly. The Universal Suffrage SGL was the right move, as was the UN build. I finally mastered the SGLs getting Manhattan, and rushing Longevity the turn after although I had the SGL a few turn before in the build process.

Not getting an early SGL hurt the date quite a bit. My research pace was not excellent either but that I blame on slow expansion through the jungles. I did choose Wet & Temperate though. More workers probably, I'm always understaffed on workers. I did buy slaves every chance I got though and had acquired a large free worker force that way. Early SGL bungling didn't help either so I probably could have had a stab at 4th place with better management. SGL luck was good but heavy in the Industrial/Modern age where it had little impact on the end date. I can see that 20K will be a hard first place spot to get once I start aiming for that.

Timeline
Palace - 3950BC
Temple - 2900BC
Colossus - 1830BC
Great Library - 975BC
Library - 900BC
Oracle - 530BC
Colosseum - 450BC
Temple of Artemis - 390BC (via SGL)
Hanging Gardens - 210BC
Cathedral 150BC
Sistine 310AD
University 320AD
JS Bach 540AD
Shakespeare 710AD
Newton 850AD
Leonardo's 900AD (what was I thinking? - via SGL)
Copernicus 1030AD
Universal Suffrage 1040AD (SGL)
Magellan's 1120AD
Theory of Evolution 1190AD
Adam Smith's 1255AD
Hoover Dam 1300AD
Wall Street 1330AD
UN 1350AD (SGL)
Research Lab 1360AD
Internet 1415AD
Apollo 1445 AD
SETI 1500AD
Cure for Cancer 1510AD (SGL)
Manhattan 1545AD
Longevity 1550AD (SGL)

Thanks for reading. Next up, my first Emperor game.

Aerinon

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Nice game I remember my first 20K game - I think my date was 1750 or so - was a lot of fun, even though I couldnt' figure out why I kept getting sneak attacked. I was a heavy builder - every city built everything they could build for infrastructure

One thing I'll note:

You have a wheat on the coast that isnt' usable by anyone - unless it's unaccessible, I never leave a food bonus that near the capitol without a city to access it. Plopping one down near they could have given you a nice worker factory until you got Shakespeares.

And yes - a jungle start like that is rough

 

[Aerinon]

You have a wheat on the coast that isnt' usable by anyone - unless it's unaccessible, I never leave a food bonus that near the capitol without a city to access it. Plopping one down near they could have given you a nice worker factory until you got Shakespeares.

Huh, never thought of that. I was rather puzzled what to do with it and therefore ignored it the rest of the game. Good idea though.

 

[Chamnix]

Only 6 shields shy of the magic one hundred. Oh well, that won't increase till the modern age.

You could build a harbor and add 3 civil engineers to the city at Replaceable Parts .

 

[AutomatedTeller]

And while it's frustrating to not get to 100...

it probably doesn't make a difference of more than a turn or two in your final score.

 

[Aerinon]

You could build a harbor and add 3 civil engineers to the city at Replaceable Parts .

There was a small break between Wall Street and the UN in which I did just that. Unfortunately, anytime there was pollution (which was quite frequent in end times) unless I could reroute enough workers to clean it up that turn, starvation would lose a civil engineer or the pollution would take away a critical shield or three. You need a little over 100 to maintain the extra turn saved with pollution effects. Oh well. I did rush a nuclear plant when I got that tech, and the turn to rush was saved over the next couple of builds. It only shaved off one turn, but I'll take any advantage I can.

 

[Aerinon]

I started a Large Emperor game as the Iroquois and found an excellent start:



I played the map for a while and started quite well, but it turned out that there is no iron or horses nearby. Since I'm playing for Conquest, I didn't think this was the best start to continue on with.

A shot at 1000BC:


I thinking of starting over on another start. The only things I didn't like about this start was that I started fairly north, so the cities to the north will be hampered by tundra. That and the lack of iron/horses made me not want to continue the game for Conquest purposes.

Here's a few other starts I'm considering playing:


I'm also thinking of running MapFinder again on different settings. I generated most of these on a 60% pangea, and looking at the size of the landmass, for fast conquest I'm almost certain that I should have used 70% or 80% water with only 6 opponents. (Is there a good chance all 6 opponents on 80% water will all end up on the pangea?, if so I might do that.)

What other settings would be beneficial to fast conquest on a large map? Min opponents - less cities to kill. I'm Agr but my opponents won't be so I'm think Normal, Temperate, 5 billion. Center of world start? Or try for about 1/3 or 2/3 latitude with not being at the right/left edge of the minimap?

Fun stuff. Thanks for all the discussion, you guys are great. BTW, I updated the 100K report with pictures if anyone is interested.

Aerinon

 

[AutomatedTeller]

#1 is clearly the best.

For a conquest game, I usually go 80% and min opponents. A start for a conquest is hard - if you are in one corner, then you just sweep out and kill people, but reinforcements for later civs take awhile. For a central start, you often have to do one side and then the other, but it takes awhile for the forces you use on the first set of civs to make it across to the 2nd.

I guess middle is better than a corner, especially on a large world. I might pick a 70% pangea, but you can get civs on their own island even on a 60% pangea, though it's much less likely.

 

[Bartleby]

GIII-Epsilon was conquest on a Huge map, and I had a little look at the occurrance of offshore AI (not that it helped me get a submission in on time) and what I found is in this post. I think you just need to look for low domination limits to maximise your chances of having everyone on the same landmass.

 

[Aerinon]

I think you just need to look for low domination limits to maximise your chances of having everyone on the same landmass.

Huh, that actually makes a lot of sense. I've seen the histographic discussions on domination limits and how archipelago maps tend to have higher limits than pangea. So it would makes sense that a low domination limit on a pangea map would indicate a more contiguous land mass and thus more chances for all the civs to be on it. I'll make that part of my map selection criteria for the next round if this one does not work out.

I regenerated some starts at 80% water, and chose a central one with three cows. I got a small patch of grassland in between jungles to the south and plains to the north. I've contacted 4 civs with Zulu to the north and rest either to the south or west (of those I've met). And more importantly, there are two sources of horses. One is about 14 tiles to the northwest and there are gems on the way. (Though I've already hooked up dyes in the nearby jungle). The other is 10 tiles away but through thick jungle, but it appears it might be close to a isthmus/choke point across which many of the civs could be located. I've only managed to research the wheel so far, but I traded it for Masonry and WC, and I managed to trade the Alphabet for BW and CB. I'm currently researching writing, hoping for a shot at Philosophy or Lit, which should trade nicely for HBR, Iron and some of the other second-tier techs if I'm lucky. I'm not sure if the republic slingshot will be possible or desirable at this stage. I'll have to see the situation once I (or the AIs) finish writing.

 

[Aerinon]

Well, the second attempt has it own problems. At 80% water the Arabs got an island. That means the AIs on my continent will be bigger and i'll need a lot of ships to take out the Arabs, hopefully they won't have their UU by the time I get over there. I've taken out the Zulu and getting ready for Portugal. I've decided that letting my opponent have UUs like Impi and Eqypt's War Chariot aren't good because they can still trigger a Golden Age for the AI. So if I do start over, Egypt and Zulu are out, maybe I'll put in the English and the Spanish for opponents. I may finish this one anyway, as I'll still get a 3rd place finish.

Edited for clarity.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Actually, Egpyt is a great early conquest civ - yes, you get an early GA, but if you plan for it, that's not bad. you can just road bg's and mine non-bg grass - don't even need to road hills.

 

[Tone]

I've decided that even worthless UUs like Impi and Eqypt's War Chariot aren't good because they can still trigger a Golden Age.

Worthless? War Chariots? They are great units IMO. Horses at a 33% discount is just too good a deal to pass up. Just make sure that it is dry, cold and old to minimise the terrain that they cannot enter.

Egypt are a fantastic conquest civ and an even better domination one, due to the cheap culture via temples. I'll admit that they start to become less powerful on higher level biiger maps but I'd still choose them for a decent large Emp Conq attempt, although I'd probably go for Iroquois first unless I wanted a change.

Don't fear the early GA in a quick conquest/domination. As AT says, just plan for it.

 

[Aerinon]

Sorry! I wasn't clear on that statement. Egypt is worthless as an opponent in a Conquest game as invading them early and Cleo having War Chariots will give them a Golden Age when I don't want my opponent to have one. Ditto with the Zulu. Edited original post for clarity.

 

[Aerinon]

Well, I did finish that conquest game and scored a 3rd place finish for Large, Emperor, Conquest. I went around the map in kind of clockwise fashion. Took out the Zulus to the northwest, the Portuguese to the southwest & south, Egypt on their peninsula to the southeast. Then I headed east across the narrow pass to take out the Americans. And then south of the Americans to take out the Germans.

While battling the Portugal I got Egypt in on the war which was quite helpful in distracting and exhausting their forces. Ditto with the war with America, as I got the Germans in on it. I started having quite a bit of cultural trouble when taking Egypt's cities. During the clean-up, I started to raze cities, and continued to do so unless the city had a wonder or a luxury next to it that I didn't have yet. At the end of the war with Egypt, it was apparent that America had iron so I had to upgrade those Mounted Warriors to Knights. I didn't really need to slow down on research and got to Military Tradition by the time Germany was eliminated.

This left the pitiful Arabs on their island. I had been preparing for a navel invasion since the war with the American started, but getting Galley to the far east end of the pangea wa no mean feat. I took several boat load over and declared war and took the Arab capital on the turn following the landing. The initial landing was mostly knights, but there after, I landed mostly cavalry. Those poor spearmen didn't stand a chance. Unfortunately for me, however, the Arabs found an placed a couple cities on another island to their north. I got one of their cities in a peace deal. Rushed a longbow and marched him to their new capital to kill the only defender in the last city. Victory in 870 AD.

It was a long game too. Military games always seem to go long. The large map didn't help any either. It was about 25 turns longer than 2nd place, so I don't feel too bad. I could've completed it a lot faster had the Arabs not been on a separate landmass. I'd even consider upping the AI aggression level and perhaps adding a second opponent. As I noted earlier in the thread I wouldn't keep Zulu or Egypt as opponents as their early UU can too easily give them a golden age that allows them to put up quite the fight. Oh well, lessons learned.

I didn't take very good pictures this time around, so they may or may not be forthcoming.

 

[Aerinon]

Well, I also completed another game. If you can't tell from my new avatar or the hof update, I'm now officially a Pentathlete and one quarter on my way to quartermaster. (Well, 5/7, but that's just being technical.) To fill out some more requirements I played a Small Regent Spaceship game as Russia.

My opponents were Germany, Ottomans, Babylon, Byzantium, and Korea. I managed to get into wars with all of them except Theodora. Other settings: Pangaea, 60% water, Temperate, Normal, Sedentary Barbs.

My first war was strangely against the distant Germans because they decided one of my undefended cities was too tempting so they took it. I made them pay for their invading warriors, netting me my first totally corrupt city in the peace deal. Later, I warred with the Ottomans, took their capital, but paused for the Medieval age advancement which got me Theology, even though I couldn't afford Feudalism even with the other two techs as bargaining chips. (Theology and Engineering however was sufficient after the fact.)

The Medieval wars consisted of making first the Germans, and then the Ottoman into OCCs in their respective tundra cities. Once again, I paused the warmongering for the Industrial Age. I couldn't afford any of the Industrial age techs (maybe I forgot to reduce my slider?) and got Nationalism which easily netted me the other two. It also didn't help that the AIs never managed to contact each other or research printing press so that they would realize they didn't have monopolies.

Anyway, the next war was Korea's fault, I was prepared to leave them alone, but since they declared war I took 3-4 of their cities. The advancement to the modern age was nice, as I was able to get all but Ecology from the AIs (none of them got Ecology) and I got Space Flight for free with a nice prebuild waiting for the Apollo program. My modern age war, (fought with Infantry, Guerrillas, and a pair of Tanks) reduced Babylon to an OCC tundra civ.

Only useful trade partner turned out to be Byzantines who provided Chivalry, Fascism, and Communism in time for the various age advancements to give me some more bargaining chips. I never got a trade route to their capital... (I know: no harbors or roads? What pathetic AI ) so I never could trade for some furs.

Biggest mistake was easily my mishandling of the Republic slingshot while playing an expansionist civ. I was researching code of laws when a hut popped Philosophy, instantly finishing CoL for me. Ouch, now I had to research Republic on my own... so I decided to research Construction, hoping the next hut would pop me a government (those were the only techs left in the age) Bad choice, there were no more huts... should've gone for Republic first, and then I could've had a shot at trading for Feudalism after hand researching Construction in a Republic. As it was, I lost a significant amount of turns for that blunder. I really need to practice my teching priorities with an expansionist civ while going for the slingshot, it can be quite a challenge.

I didn't use map finder to generate this map either so I'm sure I could've found a better starting location too.

Victory date: 1150 AD, a mere 3 turns short of snagging a nice 2nd place in the table. Oh well. Next time will be different.

I have two games left for the Quartermaster challenge. A histographic one and Demigod Diplomatic where map size is discretionary. I think I'll tackle the histographic one next. I think I'll play on Emperor as I've proven I can handle conquest on that difficulty already. I don't think I'll play on a huge map though, I don't have enough patience. Also, I received Civ4/BtS and a computer powerful enough to handle it for my birthday, so I've been splitting playing time between the two. I like the faster paced action on Civ4 and less MM, but I'm certainly going to finish the QM challenge here at the least. Then, I'll take stock if I'm going to retire from Civ3 or try to improve my QM status.

 

[Aerinon]

I'm still playing, although it been months since my last submission. This Histographic game is killer.

Settings (as best as I can remember): Standard Emperor
Archipelago, 60% Water, Wet, Warm, 5 billion
Civ: Maya
Opponents: Zulu, Mongols, Germans, Americans

Current status:
I'm at at around ~1400 AD. Zulu and Mongols are out as they started on a large island next to mine without iron resources. Swords followed by MIs and later Knights cleaned them up. I'm not sure why I keep picking Zulu as an opponent. On any kind of conquest oriented victory where they end up as my first opponent, those stupid GA-triggering Impi cause a massive slowdown in my military progress that early on.

War against the Germans was slow as initial Cavalry assault was repelled. Finally got a beachhead against their main continent, but just after that they got rifles. (Why'd I pick a SCI civ again? I don't remember. Maybe because of the panzer UU?) Americans, in an MA, took out all their outlying holdings. I attacked Germany first as they were higher score/land area/tech power than the Americans. (Not anymore, of course) The war is starting to pick up now that I have Infantry and Artillery to help exterminate rifles. Against the Germans, I've been playing raze and replace except for wonder cities because of my weak culture.

Land area ~35% of total. Score is a pitiful at ~3500. Hoping that will cruise up once the wars are done. Should be able to finish up Germany in about 20-40 turns. By then, I might have tanks which should crush America swiftly. Hoping to go into pure milking before 1800 which should speed up the game considerably.

Let this be a warning to all who attempt to play such a game with maybe 1 hour a day for turns. (Less on average: I certainly don't play every day.) And if you are wondering, I have been playing this off and on since June. Someday I'll get it done, and then I'll play a DG diplo game to finish off the QM. And the people will rejoice. Well, at least I will.

 

[Tone]

I did wonder if playing a Histo game had been the reason behind the lack of recent posts. Any chance of seeing a map of the current position?

I must admit that I enjoyed the conquest part but I had to take breaks during the milking phase. If you are similar you might find yourself doing that diplo game earlier than planned.

 

[Aerinon]

A reasonable request. I'll try to get one up this evening or tomorrow morning once I'm back at my home computer.

Well, I am enjoying the conquest part, but I did take a break from Civ when Germany got rifles, WW bumped up another notch, I barely had a beachhead established and replaceable parts a couple techs away. (Of course my summer vacation in the mountains had something to do with that break too. )

If milking takes longer MM than conquest then that diplo game might not be far away. (I've heard though its a lot of hitting enter at times, which ought to speed the game right along.) This is also why I didn't do the histographic last, as I knew I might need breaks.