[NFP] Community Monthly Challenge

[Francel]

Retry without the mod, please!

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

It's a new month. I'm updating the first page to reflect our recent winners. Congrats all! Meanwhile, here is the new challenge for July:

Sim Citylization - Construct as many wonders as possible within the borders of a single city by turn 175 on standard speed

You'll have to make some tough choices - do you crank our early settlers for domestic trade routes? Do you spend time and land building districts? Do you sack your highest yield tiles to plop wonders? As you progress, the cost of wonders will increase, and land will become scarce. Perhaps some great persons will be able to lend a hand.

Further stipulations (Important, please read fully)

-The size of the map must be small or larger. You may not decrease the number of opponents or city-states at the start (Thus, on small size, you must have at least 5 opponents). You may use city state, civ, and natural wonder pickers. You may choose the level of disasters, as well as things like world age, wet or dry, resource abundance, and legendary vs normal start. The only mode enabled for this challenge will be barbarians (keeping it a little simpler for everyone). No mods/cheats/exploits/glitches that give an unfair advantage are allowed. You may "reroll" for better RNG.

-As usual, there are two tiers of competition - deity and prince through immortal.

-Any questions or complaints?
___________________________________________

Can't wait to see what people manage to come up with!

Hi all, new here! Have been lately inspired by HoF and the Community Monthly Challenge to finally join the forum, so kudos to Francel and others!

It seems like I end up building a dozen wonders anyway in the late game, so I thought I would give this challenge a shot. Qin was a natural choice for me too, and I ended up building 16 wonders by T173 (though I played to T175 in case you needed that as well).



Some specific notes: The settings are accurate for Clans mode except I swapped out Mansa Musa in favor of Ghandi in this run-through. I generally chose based on my experience of which civilizations compete heavily for wonders. I chopped in Országház on the last turn, which is why it shows up on the list but also appears to be still under construction on the map.

There were a few obstacles but in general it was a very lucky play-through. Like a good number of re-rolls, this map was plagued by low-production and dead tiles. Nevertheless, a number of boons came through. I managed to chain the old Stonehenge into Divine Inspiration into Apadana into Kilwa combos for perhaps 35 envoys, which let me take suzerainty of Nan Madol to keep up with culture. Then, I used that faith to purchase not only Isidore but also Brunelleschi! A few turns off Eiffel as well, but lucky to have three of the wonder-builders among the first five Great Engineers.

On a basic level, Qin brings out my inner despot. I settled about nine other cities, which promptly got to work on a commercial hub or harbor, and dispatched the free worker to be fed to wonders back in the metropole. I prioritized Wisselbanken to supplement my capital's abysmal production and was chasing down Suffrage toward the end. Overall, easy deity game with no armed conflict, attacks on city-states, or competition over wonders; and only contending with low-production and impoverished AIs.

It seems the bottlenecks include space, production, and culture (possibly science). With more production, I could have built Potala Palace and Cristo Redentor or Colosseum, but there would have been a lot more room with less water and fewer mountains. I might have to try again with an industrial zone in the capital because production plateaued at ~32 pre-Wisselbanken, and basically tripled with half a dozen trade routes and industrialization at T153. Likewise, I probably could have eked out Potala Palace with more precise chopping. Although I usually have a T3 government if I want one by T150, I basically neglected culture in favor of production post-Nan Madol. Science was moderately useful but in the end I had access to more wonders than I could build.

All in all, I had a lot of fun cramming my capital with all these wonders especially in the last 25 turns. Thanks for putting together the challenge! Hope to return with at least one other submission.

 

[Aa602213x1023]

Retry without the mod, please!

Your wish is my command!

I tried the same map without the mod this time, and came up one short of my previous mark: this time I had 14 wonders at turn 175. The limiting factor proved to be not so much production in the city, but the number of available tiles. I could have built at least one more wonder with a Great Engineer charge and a few turns of production if there had been one more tile adjacent to my City Center.

Thanks again for a fun challenge!

 

[Francel]

Saxo, aa6 - those are amazing pictures. What difficulty levels were you on? Apologies if I just didn’t see and you already indicated.

Also, I think you are deserving of taking a pretty picture and sharing in screenshots thread, but that is your call of course!

 

[Aa602213x1023]

Saxo, aa6 - those are amazing pictures. What difficulty levels were you on? Apologies if I just didn’t see and you already indicated.

I think it was deity for both of us--more detailed settings for my attempt are in the screenshot here, and Saxo's look to be here, in case anyone is curious.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Saxo, aa6 - those are amazing pictures. What difficulty levels were you on? Apologies if I just didn’t see and you already indicated.

Also, I think you are deserving of taking a pretty picture and sharing in screenshots thread, but that is your call of course!

Yes, deity here as well. And those are my settings except for playing with Ghandi instead of Mansa Musa.

 

[Vargas1]

Saxo - the lack of production is tough, but that otherwise is a pretty amazing location for this challenge - the snaky coast that lets you have Mausoleum plus three other wonders next to the harbor is tremendous.

I think it's interesting that both submissions so far used Qin (not surprising) but neither ended up in a location where they could get Pyramids - Qin plus one or two desert tiles is a tremendous combo.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Yes, unfortunately, I think you need to roll a pretty amazing start to have a good shot at churning out wonders. I was quite happy with the coast even if Mausoleum only enhanced three workable tiles. The harbor, holy site, and I suppose encampment (looking at aa6's) are key for a bunch of wonders, whereas the campus and entertainment districts have lower potential. I suppose any start has potential for a mix of terrain- and district-based wonders.

My experience from a few rolls is that the AI loves to go after Pyramids now and without sufficient early production/science it is easy even as Qin to lose out on the wonder. I think Qin's main advantage is, leaving some things up to chance, you can focus production on infrastructure and late wonders while builder charges finish as many classical wonders as you can fit.

 

[Vargas1]

I wonder (pun intended), and time willing may give it a shot, how successful someone like Germany might be at this challenge - would take a little setting up at the beginning and would probably miss some of the early wonders, but get a hansa surrounded by commercial hubs, stick in Magnus with Vertical Integration, and just go HAM on Medieval/Renaissance wonders (plus you're probably getting all the Great Engineers - Imhotep seems like virtually a necessity for this challenge).

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

So, I did some quick math: I built 9480 production worth of wonders. Over 175 turns, that's roughly 54 production per turn. Given that the figure includes builder charges, Great Engineers, and chops, I've also wondered whether a production heavy strategy would be competitive. Your idea sounds great, Vargas1! I would also consider ye old work ethic strategy (though I have found in the past as Peter that many wonders cannot in fact be built on tundra) or the other wonder builders, i.e. Cleopatra and France. With Egypt, I have been loath to sacrifice river tiles. As for France, let's just say you'd have to have some production to make use of the 20% bonus.

 

[Bangau]

The simcity player in me had a lot of wonder trying to squeeze in all the wonders in one city. Here's what I ended up with (deity):

Spoiler screen turn 153 :

A total of 17 wonders at turn 153. Since I don't have any suitable space left for the wonder that remain, there's no use continuing to turn 175.

I'm sure @Saxo Grammaticus the good old 'Peter + Work Ethic' strat works like a charm for this challenge. And a wonder start doesn't hurt either...

The settings I chose were totally cooked in my favor:

Spoiler settings :

The general approach was a twist to the Peter fast science strategy (see other threads in the forum and Hall of Fame): go all in on faith and buy tons of settlers and builders. Chop out lavras in new cities (if they are in the tundra), then start work on a commercial hub or harbor to get as many traders as possible. Use all of them in the capital to get super high production.

I'm sure other production strategies could work well, like Germany that @Vargas1 mentioned. If your city has the right land and you get lots of production, you should be able to get even over 20 wonders.

Thanks again for the fun challenge!

Spoiler screenshot :

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

Wow, Bangau! I'm blown away. Definitely going to have to get back in the kitchen!

 

[Francel]

Glad ya’ll are having fun! Please consider posting a “beauty” shot as well as the tactical overlay, so I can make a nice wallpaper. Thanks!

I confess I didn’t expect to see such high numbers of wonders. Wow…

 

[Bangau]

Please consider posting a “beauty” shot

Edited my post to include one of those.

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

I wonder (pun intended), and time willing may give it a shot, how successful someone like Germany might be at this challenge - would take a little setting up at the beginning and would probably miss some of the early wonders, but get a hansa surrounded by commercial hubs, stick in Magnus with Vertical Integration, and just go HAM on Medieval/Renaissance wonders (plus you're probably getting all the Great Engineers - Imhotep seems like virtually a necessity for this challenge).

As it turns out--rather well!

Deity/Germany/T160/20

Spoiler T160 :

At this point, I did not have space for further wonders; however, I realized belatedly I could possibly have added Sydney Opera House and Venetian Arsenal with better planning and culture. I also did not employ the full HoF min-maxing and could probably have shaved turns off with a few jungle chops and cheaper wonders.

These are pretty standard settings for me these days, but I copied Bangau's AI and curated the city-states and wonders.

Spoiler Settings :

So let's get into it: yes, I did finally roll an Ik-Kil start and it was as much fun as it looked Basically, from a few attempts to crack 17, I have developed a quick slingshot strategy for Germany: prioritize Apadana plus two early wonders, beeline apprenticeship/feudalism, settle with Ancestral Hall until printing researched, beeline industrialization and prioritize guilds/exploration/mass media. The many downsides include having 3 cities at T70 and offering little to no assistance to the satellites. But around T113 every city starts completing hansas and commercial hubs and production can quadruple in the capital with vertical integration and trade routes.

In this case, I actually missed Ik-Kil on T1 and had to backtrack to settle on T4! That said, the deep cenote waters aided a 17-turn Etemenanki that led into a Lady of the Reeds and Marshes pantheon. After Apadana and Temple of Artemis, I settled ~10 cities. Ik-Kil was most impactful for those wonders plus Forbidden City, which, no matter what I seem to do, always demands more production than I have on hand. Etemenanki was very lucky as I have never snagged it on Deity, and the Oracle was also a steal. Gossip revealed Sweden had started it ~T90, so I plopped it down and Isidore completed it.

I find the mid-to-late-game to be the hardest, because, while production ramps up, there are many highly positional wonders that just fill in the blanks. When Oracle goes, there is not always a way to use all the hills. It's very easy to lose out on any number of wonders at this stage. Other tiles, like the deer on the far side of Ik-Kil just seem impossible to build on. Once Cristo Redentor was complete, it was just a matter of filling in all the excess river tiles.

Now, I don't think Ik-Kil is essential, but I will definitely say the amazing starts where you are spoiled for choice in positioning and production help a ton. Thanks again for the fun challenge!

Spoiler Screenshot :

 

[Bangau]

Very impressive @Saxo Grammaticus !

 

[Aa602213x1023]

That is simply amazing, @Saxo Grammaticus. I think you and @Bangau are playing Civ VI chess while I'm playing Civ VI checkers!

 

[Saxo Grammaticus]

That is simply amazing, @Saxo Grammaticus. I think you and @Bangau are playing Civ VI chess while I'm playing Civ VI checkers!

Something I am definitely enjoying about joining for this CMC is while the challenge has a lot of overlap with the game, it also demands creative strategies and different perspectives. If I could translate this back to a sub T150 science victory, I would be so happy. If not, I sure have enjoyed the wonder-spamming this month!

 

[Francel]

Thank you to everyone who participated these past several months. If anyone should desire to resurrect CMC in a new thread next month, you have my support and best wishes. Otherwise, July will be the last month due to new obligations in my life.

Thanks again everyone.

 

[Planktonic]

It's well into August but just wanted to give this thread a proper send-off.

Thanks to Francel for a very entertaining and instructive thread. I learned a lot from seeing the exemplary efforts posted here. Good luck to you in your new life endeavours!