An Unofficial Science Competition -- paying homage to Mesix

[Grendeldef]

these are designed to be replayable so that each of the actual playthroughs assumes the same game knowledge. and there are indeed 16 CSs, it's just that you start in a corner of the map rather than in the middle.

Yeah, my fault entirely but the game just caught me trousers down with it's inactivity so I joined the club and camped near the capital - refreshing but I do not intend to do this again.
After I recover the initial shock I'll prolly do at least one more game - properly this time but to have compareable results I'll stick with the very limited RAs plan.

G

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Yeah, my fault entirely but the game just caught me trousers down with it's inactivity so I joined the club and camped near the capital - refreshing but I do not intend to do this again.
After I recover the initial shock I'll prolly do at least one more game - properly this time but to have compareable results I'll stick with the very limited RAs plan.

G

im generally bummed about RAs right now anyway. im avoiding them beyond the first couple when you arent over-paying for them. usually when i reach Education I can only even trade with 2 civs anyway. after that the bugs arent worth it. ive only been signing 1-2 per game and sometimes not at all.

 

[DGDobrev]

I gotta say I agree one can learn a lot. Stealing their gold through GPT + WAR never occurred to me... Gotta watch it till the end.

EDIT: and I thought I was a bad guy for selling luxuries to the AI when can be pillaged by barbs within the next 5 turns... tommynt is wicked

 

[Tabarnak]

Update turn 120 and 150 as Babylon :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Between these turns Rome DoWed me. I accepted a great peace deal some turns later. I rush bought all universities and public schools in my 3 main cities. Still pupetting Copenhagen. I don't feel it gonna help me to annex this city. I signed a wave of 3 RAs that will mature in next 2 to 12 turns range.

Wonders :

Dur : Oracle, Taj(currently)
Akkad : Petra, Macchu, Tower of Pisa
Babylon : HS, Ironworks, National Epic, PT(currently)

Reached the Ren. era at turn 107. 3 turns later i got 2 policies from Rationalism. My faith production is low(couldn't get desert folklore) so i will not enhance my religion but i will keep faith for free gs instead. I picked a ge from Pisa and will keep it for Hubble.

 

[Arilian]

With Bab, i did not get a religion at all.
Focusing Purely Science I got Rat a turn 90.
I have a lead on you but you have 2times more cities, I wonder if you catch up until rocetry.

 

[Mesix]

Update turn 120 and 150 as Babylon :

Spoiler :

Spoiler :

Between these turns Rome DoWed me. I accepted a great peace deal some turns later. I rush bought all universities and public schools in my 3 main cities. Still pupetting Copenhagen. I don't feel it gonna help me to annex this city. I signed a wave of 3 RAs that will mature in next 2 to 12 turns range.

Wonders :

Dur : Oracle, Taj(currently)
Akkad : Petra, Macchu, Tower of Pisa
Babylon : HS, Ironworks, National Epic, PT(currently)

Reached the Ren. era at turn 107. 3 turns later i got 2 policies from Rationalism. My faith production is low(couldn't get desert folklore) so i will not enhance my religion but i will keep faith for free gs instead. I picked a ge from Pisa and will keep it for Hubble.

I have a couple of questions.

I assume that you also have the National College in Babylon. Do you? If so, did you build it early (and cheap) or after expanding your empire (and building Libraries everywhere)?

Do you beeline Scientific Theory before or after you get Printing Press? I ask because you said that you built Tower of Pisa (Printing Press) already, and I see that you are currently building the PT in Babylon. What is your research path in general?

Why don't you use the GE to rush PT? Especially with 3 RA about to mature (along with the extra GS) it seems that PT would be better now rather than later. Do you not plan to get any more GE throughout the game?

I assume that if you want to save the GE for Hubble that you must be going the Freedom route for your post Rationalism social policies, correct?

 

[DGDobrev]

I'm asking Hammer Rabbi in PM to add the Americans. We need a non-science civ as a base.

It is actually really easy to do it yourself. Simply load any of HammerRabbi's saves, go to the save screen, and hit save map. Name it something like Hammer Rabbi's Map or something. Then enter the WorldBuilder, load the map, find the starting position and click the tile. On the right side of your screen there should be dropdown menu that says "No starting position". Change this to "Random player" and save.

This is all you need to do. Just set up a game, and as map pick HammerRabbi's map (default is Pangaea). You may see the other civs spawn in different locations, but it is not that big of a deal. You do get to play your favorite civ on this map, this is the easiest way to do it. Check the attached screens for examples. I started with America and the Inca on the same spot.

So even thought some enemies may start differently, you do get to play your fave civ on this map. You also have an option to alter the difficulty, if it's too hard or too easy for you.

 

[PhilBowles]

i thought id seen them randomized for the type but maybe that was in vanilla. is there a fixed chart for each of the CSs somewhere?

They were fixed in vanilla too (and Tyre was always militaristic). The Civilopedia actually has entries for each CS by name, complete with background as well as describing type and personality, which is a nice touch

 

[Grendeldef]

My mostly uneventful & boring game ended @258 while researching 2nd future tech as I didn't bother to count the beakers early enough which gives me the opportunity to suggest a new minor feature for game designers to implement:

** While selecting multiple techs for future research the should be an indicator for cumulative beakers needed for those techs. Simple math, yes but instead of counting it roughly an instant exact figure would be nice. **

After T200 I conquered most of China just to have something to do & for my surprise Songhai wanted to become my friend so I actually had 2 RAs later.
Hiawatha was my friend until few turns from the end but I killed 8 of his spies while he managed to steal few techs but apart from China no one even bothered which is odd. Hiawatha evetually DoW in the penultimate turn but while building parts I refused all deals just to speed up the final rounds.

I made so many mistakes that it's hard to estimate how much faster it could've been but 20-30 easily. Perhaps next game will give a better estimation; I'll most likely try with Korea.
Since G&K I've only played one sci game due to bugged RAs so my tech path was way off the optimal, I settled far too late & too few cities and I didn't ally nowhere enough CSs to keep a decent pace with policies.
Also the lack of military of AIs came as surprise. I didn't build an offensive army but had I known the AI lack of any sort of army I would have build few more troops to conquer neighbours much earlier.

----

My ss finger was apparently in coma most of the time so the pix are from turns I completed a wonder - not much of a visual treat but the essential stats are visible.

G

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

They were fixed in vanilla too (and Tyre was always militaristic). The Civilopedia actually has entries for each CS by name, complete with background as well as describing type and personality, which is a nice touch

bummer. had i known that i would have more smartly chosen CSs. as it was i just picked a bunch of them because i thought each start would randomize their style. grendeldef finds these to be boring and few military CSs are contributing to it. should i try this again ill make a small cheat sheet in a notebook so i can refer to it to place better CSs.

DGDobrev: yes, that is the easy way to get to play the map, but it wouldnt really be accurate in this comparison. both civs and CSs get randomized and can easily change the way the game unfolds very significantly. but for fun reasons you could randomize the whole thing, particularly your start location. im getting enough replies to see where Ive made some mistakes in this map. this is good for me so I can make them better next time.

 

[Grendeldef]

bummer. had i known that i would have more smartly chosen CSs. as it was i just picked a bunch of them because i thought each start would randomize their style. grendeldef finds these to be boring and few military CSs are contributing to it. should i try this again ill make a small cheat sheet in a notebook so i can refer to it to place better CSs.

As a clarification I'd just like to mention that there's nothing wrong with the setup regarding maps, CSs or anything like that. I was bored because the game was just so much different from my usual games - no early wars of any kind, no hostile neighbours, no settling nearby etc. All these I assume are due to the difficulty lvl and what this competition is good for is to test what a civ can do on it's own. In that respect the Maya have a slight advantage with their religion bias - this lvl a religion is guaranteed with just building pyramids.
Also due to the RA bug I've mostly played domination games but actually this is closer to the game I hoped vanilla were when I started

After finishing the game I'm much more optimistic for finishing another one than I was yesterday - I just need to adjust the slow pace.

G

 

[Tabarnak]

I assume that you also have the National College in Babylon. Do you? If so, did you build it early (and cheap) or after expanding your empire (and building Libraries everywhere)?

Yes. After 3 cities and CB rush i built libraries and built the NC. Then i expanded with 2 more cities.

Do you beeline Scientific Theory before or after you get Printing Press? I ask because you said that you built Tower of Pisa (Printing Press) already, and I see that you are currently building the PT in Babylon. What is your research path in general?

After PP. Went Guilds before Edu for Macchu. Then Acoustics, PP, Architechture, Plastics, Fertilizer, Rocketry.

Why don't you use the GE to rush PT? Especially with 3 RA about to mature (along with the extra GS) it seems that PT would be better now rather than later. Do you not plan to get any more GE throughout the game?

Good question. My PT will be finished before last 2 RAs from the first wave with also the 50% RA bonus from policy. I decided to keep faith for gs. No more ge for the rest of the game.

I assume that if you want to save the GE for Hubble that you must be going the Freedom route for your post Rationalism social policies, correct?

I will not open Freedom. I will finish rationalism ASAP. I don't know if i have time for other trees.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

Grendeldef: As a clarification I'd just like to mention that there's nothing wrong with the setup regarding maps, CSs or anything like that. I was bored because the game was just so much different from my usual games - no early wars of any kind, no hostile neighbours, no settling nearby etc. All these I assume are due to the difficulty lvl and what this competition is good for is to test what a civ can do on it's own. In that respect the Maya have a slight advantage with their religion bias - this lvl a religion is guaranteed with just building pyramids.
Also due to the RA bug I've mostly played domination games but actually this is closer to the game I hoped vanilla were when I started

After finishing the game I'm much more optimistic for finishing another one than I was yesterday - I just need to adjust the slow pace.

G

ideally i want to make these saves at deity. making a deity save goes beyond just setting each civ/CS to deity difficulty in worldbuilder. in order to get the starting locations fixed for civs i have to do it manually with settler units but im not sure what exact other bonus units they get like additional settlers or scouts or whatever. when i figure that out and mess with it i can do this with deity saves. i think deity is the best litmus test for which civ really is (or isnt) better at science.

 

[NwabudikeMorgan]

My test is done! Hooray!
The results are as follows with victory screenshots

Babylon: T310

Babylon's game I did not get a religion, as i was trying to focus on science. I conquered and made puppets out of Copenhagen and Rome, as well as a few other small cities of theirs. Built 3, puppet 5. Policies: Tradition-Commerce opener-Rationalism-Center branch of Order. Songhai and Celts were conquered, so less RA choices there, and Incas were so broke they were useless.

Spoiler :

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/2/6/0/6/4/nebby_original.jpg

Korea: T308

As korea, I founded 3 cities then took all of Harald's Empire (5 cities) Yay fountain of youth!! Again songhai and celts were killed off, and again Incas tried to attack Iroquois and suffered for it. Same policies as for Babylon.

Spoiler :

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/2/6/0/6/4/sejong_original.jpg

Maya: T306

Best game of the three by far! Conquered Harald again, then Iroquois got ballsy and took over rome, but then everyone Dow'd them, including me, and i got rome's old cities as puppets and 3 iroquois cities to boot. Got an early religion (pastafarianism) and spread it like crazy with faith from pyramids, it ended up covering 80+ % of the world, which game lots of extra happy. Policies: Liberty-piety opener-Rationalism-Center branch of order.

Spoiler :

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/2/6/0/6/4/pacal_original.jpg

 

[Agent Cooper]

i didnt set it up with any DLC disabled but technically not all the DLC is in this game. Korea, GnK, Inca and Denmark are in the game, but not Polynesia. Try the save to see if it will load.

Thx - I bought the Korea + Ancient Wonders DLC, but I still can't load the saves. I'm told I'm missing a DLC. As far as I know, Polynesia is the only one I'm missing. My version is 1.0.1.705. Any of you guys playing it, do you have all the released DLCs or are you missing any? Are there any maps DLCs I'm not aware of?

These are my DLCs:

Spoiler :

 

[PhilBowles]

My test is done! Hooray!
The results are as follows with victory screenshots

Babylon: T310

Babylon's game I did not get a religion, as i was trying to focus on science. I conquered and made puppets out of Copenhagen and Rome, as well as a few other small cities of theirs. Built 3, puppet 5. Policies: Tradition-Commerce opener-Rationalism-Center branch of Order. Songhai and Celts were conquered, so less RA choices there, and Incas were so broke they were useless.

Spoiler :

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/2/6/0/6/4/nebby_original.jpg

Korea: T308

As korea, I founded 3 cities then took all of Harald's Empire (5 cities) Yay fountain of youth!! Again songhai and celts were killed off, and again Incas tried to attack Iroquois and suffered for it. Same policies as for Babylon.

Spoiler :

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/2/6/0/6/4/sejong_original.jpg

Maya: T306

Best game of the three by far! Conquered Harald again, then Iroquois got ballsy and took over rome, but then everyone Dow'd them, including me, and i got rome's old cities as puppets and 3 iroquois cities to boot. Got an early religion (pastafarianism) and spread it like crazy with faith from pyramids, it ended up covering 80+ % of the world, which game lots of extra happy. Policies: Liberty-piety opener-Rationalism-Center branch of order.

Spoiler :

http://www.civfanatics.com/gallery/files/1/2/6/0/6/4/pacal_original.jpg

Hmm, looks from the testimony so far (still haven't tried this setup myself) that, somewhat to my surprise, Maya consistently outperform both Babylon and Korea on beaker counts.

However, looking at these screenshots the Babylon game seems decidedly weaker than the other two - happiness is so low, yet at the same time the populations of your cities are dwarfed by those in the Korean screenshot. What's the reason for this? If Babylon had pop to contend with Korea's it would have a higher bpt in the endgame and would probably have won several turns earlier - although Korea has such high excess happiness that it could have supported a lot more population to push its own total up.

Maya again seem to be well ahead, both in a beaker count that's considerably higher relative to Korea than Korea relative to Babylon, two turns earlier, and with 39 happiness that could potentially support extra population.

 

[Hammer Rabbi]

NwabudikeMorgan, well done! I'm glad you finished with all three. Im surprised by the results, too. Thanks.

 

[budweiser]

Agent Cooper perhaps if you downloaded fresh saves, it might work.

 

[Tabarnak]

Hmm, looks from the testimony so far (still haven't tried this setup myself) that, somewhat to my surprise, Maya consistently outperform both Babylon and Korea on beaker counts.

It depends how you play the game i guess. Not sure if Mayas are the best. His UA has a weakness, it reduces overall gs production.

----------------------------

Update turn 180 :

I did research fertilizer before Plastics(didnt remember it was that close). Burned a gs to get Plastics sooner. Rush bought 3 research labs in 3 main cities. Other cities has finished their public schools. Hiawatha DoWed me some turns faetr RA finished. Still at war.

My cpt was higher than i thought. I opened Order before finishing rationalism(in 8 turns). Maybe it would have been better to open 2 order policies(25% science from factories) first before finishing Rationalism but i'm not used about this path. I rarely produce enough cpt during a science game. I want 2 free techs for Hubble and another costly one right after Rocketry. Oxford is waiting and also 4 gs. Probably produce 2 more gs for next 30 turns(trying really hard with faith, allied 2 faith cs and built soe temples).

Spoiler :

My tech rate will not grow very much more my cities are growing more slowly and my 3 main cities are top researching. I will probably finish before 220.

 

[NwabudikeMorgan]

Hmm, looks from the testimony so far (still haven't tried this setup myself) that, somewhat to my surprise, Maya consistently outperform both Babylon and Korea on beaker counts.

However, looking at these screenshots the Babylon game seems decidedly weaker than the other two - happiness is so low, yet at the same time the populations of your cities are dwarfed by those in the Korean screenshot. What's the reason for this? If Babylon had pop to contend with Korea's it would have a higher bpt in the endgame and would probably have won several turns earlier - although Korea has such high excess happiness that it could have supported a lot more population to push its own total up.

Maya again seem to be well ahead, both in a beaker count that's considerably higher relative to Korea than Korea relative to Babylon, two turns earlier, and with 39 happiness that could potentially support extra population.

The babylon game suffered for not having religion I found. In the Maya game, I had +1happy/city +1 happy from pyramids and +2 happy from temples, so happyness was through the roof, which led to lots of Golden ages. Also i should note, Maya should have won by more, as i had two RA's bug out and not give science boost. so maybe could have gotten Maya in under turn 300. The korean game I had both +10% growth and +15% growth if not at war, so thats a big part of why the cities got bigger, though in all cases there were long stretches where i had the capital set to production focus, sacrificing growth to get out key wonders or catch up on buildings.

This spawn i have to say is also pretty awful. but as it was a comparison between civs, they all had to deal with the same awfulness. had this been my personal game i would have rerolled this start.