del62
Deity
Sorry I didnt put the date in it was 640AD, by 190AD I was doing around 1000cpt rising to over 2700cpt at the end.
HOF III December Gauntlet
- Thread starter Tone
- Start date
Sorry I didnt put the date in it was 640AD, by 190AD I was doing around 1000cpt rising to over 2700cpt at the end.
RFHolloway
Analyst in the UK
depends on the discount factor - you have 3 fpt which is 0.25 pop per turn, but there is a delay on the build as the settler travels to the city site.
Here's my start:
As you can see MapFinder tells me I have a domination limit of 990. Bartleby's table indicates this as on the lower end for a small pangea map. That said, all I wanted here was this:
I didn't feel all too great about the start. Ideally I'd want a second food bonus nearby. In the pic above you might see that I'm
1. near the coast,
2. I have uncleared grassland nearby,
3. I have brown plains nearby also.
On the plus side though, you can see I have a river which extends for a while. As I mentioned before, I founded my first cities (except maybe the city by the grapes) on rivers so that I could get a little more food in Despotism. Here's a 1625 screenshot of my empire:
The cities you can't see there have ivory and spices nearby. I thought about roading the jungle first, but I figured since I'd slice the jungle down eventually, I'd do that first. As the inexperienced civ III player learns, slicing down jungle and then roading takes fewer worker turns, but it does trade off early commerce to save worker turns. In 1625 I have 4 settlers, 12 workers, and 3 warriors which I used as scouts. I felt I had a good game going, but I didn't really have a handle as to how good. In that screenshot you can see that I have a somewhat strict CxC spacing pattern.
I pretty much used that throughout my empire, except for, as you might see there also, in places where I might have a food bonus nearby. I even disbanded a city or two and replaced it by two cities if I accidently spaced them in such a way and I realized later I could fit another city in somewhere. If you look at the space between 003 and 010 you can see it follows the pattern CxxxC, which, of course I backfilled later on when it seemed like the time to do so.
I played against England, Portugal, and Spain hoping I might trade for Alphabet early on. That didn't happen. Research went Masonry-Republic Slingshot-Mysticism-Polytheism. I did research Monarchy after learning Gunpowder (see below). I don't think I learned Monotheism until after I had Monarchy. I handbuilt the ToA (the FP above is a pre-build on the ToA), the SoZ, the Hanging Gardens, and SGLed the Sistine Chapel.
I went with the conventional irrigate-brown, mine green for the most part while a Republic, until a few turns before learning Feudalism. 002 pretty much grew to size 7, and had some workers added in so that I could get that ToA finished ASAP. Here's an 1175 screenshot:
002 was at size 11, with 17 uncorrupted shields per turn, and it read 7 turns left on the ToA. Our Celts had 5 turns to go on Feudalism, which my people revolted to as soon as they could. It took a turn more to finish the ToA also than could have happened, as I missed that I needed to raise the luxury slider upon becoming Feudal so 002 wouldn't revolt. It finished in 950 BC. In 1175, I had wines, dyes, ivory, silks, and gems hooked up. I also had a distant city near incense which took a while to hook up. I had 5 settlers, 29 workers, 3 warriors, and 24 cities by this point.
By 650 BC I had the incense online, I had spotted furs and spices and had settlers and workers moving around to hook them up. I had finished the SoZ in 690 BC. I had thought about taking Spain's territory as they lay closer to me than anyone else and they had some flood plains. But, I eventually decided on taking England's land, as they had a nice patch of green. That wouldn't happen for a while. I had 63 cities up, 12 settlers, 58 workers, and 3 warriors, at about 38% of the domination limit. Our (I'm the only one playing, I just use that in the manner an author says "our position is...") Celts had 2038 culture. The Celts learned Invention 2 turns later in 650 BC. Here's a 650 BC pic:
There you might see that I have workers two tiles away from roaded squares. That usually would imply that I might have wasted worker turns. But, since it takes 3 turns for the Celts to road a square, it takes 2 turns for a worker to move to the same spot while the settler can found in the space between where you have roads and where your worker starts to road. For example, you can see this happening up near 054 in the aforementioned screenshot.
As I think Del62 pointed out somewhere else (thanks! I didn't think of this!), you don't need or even want roads everywhere in this sort of game. In truth, you'll save time and grow faster if you only build a basic road network to connect your cities and speed up any units that you might move around. Irrigation, and forest chopping happens more quickly if you build fewer rather than more roads. I think I ended up overdoing roads in this game, but just in case someone got aggressive on me I wanted a thorough road network to my borders.
Here's another pic from 650:
In this pic you can see I have 10 shields in the box, and 4 citizens, so of course here I whip out a settler. Here's a less straightforward instance of where I whipped out a settler:
You might see I have a city at size 4 with 5 food in the box, and 5 fpt. Now, the food at size 4 is NOT a guarantee that you can whip out a settler here for the next turn. In some situations where you can whip the city at size 4 and it reads "growth in 1 turn" it might turn to "growth in 2 turns" say if you have a bunch of irrigated grasslands, and you play as a non-agricultural tribe. The key lies in knowing how much food per turn you'll have as soon as you whip. Here we have two 2 food squares which match the population we lose by whipping, so the city will still have 5 food per turn after whipping. Thus, the city will drop to size 2, grow on the interturn, and produce the settler on the interturn also as food precedes production in the game sequence. Here's an example where whipping would NOT produce a settler the next turn:
The difficulty lies in that if we whipped the settler here, we would have to lose one of the 3 food squares and the city would only have 5 fpt and thus not get back to size 3, as we need 6 fpt this turn to reach a larger next city size.
In 450 BC the Celts had completed research on Gunpowder, which yielded this:
The furs would come online on the interturn. I had started a 4 turn run on Monarchy. I didn't have Monotheism yet, but I did have a few libraries up. I had 99 cities, 20 settlers, 83 workers, 2 warriors, and 2 ancient cavalry.
By 330 BC I had 2 turns left on Monotheism, 2 turns left on the Hanging Gardens, and I would hook up the spices on the next turn. Later on I would lose the spices for a few turns as I ended up disbanding a few cities here and there to not go over the domination limit upon cultural expansions. I had 124 cities, 17 settlers, 96 workers, 2 warriors, a medieval infantry, and 3 ancient cavalry. Around this time, I whipped a few medieval infantry from cities out near the English for the upcoming war. I also had some core cities on barracks/horsemen. By 290 BC I controlled 56% of the territory on the map.
In 250 BC I had 136 cities, 12 settlers, 109 workers, 2 warriors, 4 horsemen, 5 medieval infantries, and 4 ancient cavalries. Here's a shot of the English territory at that point:
A few turns later I declared on the English and started taking their territory. By 130 BC I had shut off research, hap captured some English cities, had 15 settlers, 122 workers, 2 warriors, 12 horsemen, 6 medieval infantries, 5 ancient cavalries, and some 153 cities. I had some 10,412 culture with 63% of the territory on the map within my borders. By 10 BC the English were gone. I had some 14,580 culture and I had disbanded at least 3 of my former cities. In 130 AD I had 21,081 culture.
In 250 CE I had a deficit of some 101 gpt, with something like 806 gold in the bank. I did worry about going broke, but I did manage to get my economy stabilized before this happened. I had 28,121 culture by this point. I had 29,390 in 260 CE. Since that's 1269 cpt, had I not built anything else I would have won in 660 CE at this point. But, I still had some nice cathedrals, libraries, and colosseums to build. In 420 I felt sure I couldn't drop my finish date anymore, and with my economy stabilized by that point I started clicking the next turn button. Henry decided to talk to me one turn before finish:
I gave him what he wanted, and stumbled over the 80k mark in 600 AD.
Spoiler :
As you can see MapFinder tells me I have a domination limit of 990. Bartleby's table indicates this as on the lower end for a small pangea map. That said, all I wanted here was this:
Spoiler :
I didn't feel all too great about the start. Ideally I'd want a second food bonus nearby. In the pic above you might see that I'm
1. near the coast,
2. I have uncleared grassland nearby,
3. I have brown plains nearby also.
On the plus side though, you can see I have a river which extends for a while. As I mentioned before, I founded my first cities (except maybe the city by the grapes) on rivers so that I could get a little more food in Despotism. Here's a 1625 screenshot of my empire:
Spoiler :
The cities you can't see there have ivory and spices nearby. I thought about roading the jungle first, but I figured since I'd slice the jungle down eventually, I'd do that first. As the inexperienced civ III player learns, slicing down jungle and then roading takes fewer worker turns, but it does trade off early commerce to save worker turns. In 1625 I have 4 settlers, 12 workers, and 3 warriors which I used as scouts. I felt I had a good game going, but I didn't really have a handle as to how good. In that screenshot you can see that I have a somewhat strict CxC spacing pattern.
I pretty much used that throughout my empire, except for, as you might see there also, in places where I might have a food bonus nearby. I even disbanded a city or two and replaced it by two cities if I accidently spaced them in such a way and I realized later I could fit another city in somewhere. If you look at the space between 003 and 010 you can see it follows the pattern CxxxC, which, of course I backfilled later on when it seemed like the time to do so.
I played against England, Portugal, and Spain hoping I might trade for Alphabet early on. That didn't happen. Research went Masonry-Republic Slingshot-Mysticism-Polytheism. I did research Monarchy after learning Gunpowder (see below). I don't think I learned Monotheism until after I had Monarchy. I handbuilt the ToA (the FP above is a pre-build on the ToA), the SoZ, the Hanging Gardens, and SGLed the Sistine Chapel.
I went with the conventional irrigate-brown, mine green for the most part while a Republic, until a few turns before learning Feudalism. 002 pretty much grew to size 7, and had some workers added in so that I could get that ToA finished ASAP. Here's an 1175 screenshot:
Spoiler :
002 was at size 11, with 17 uncorrupted shields per turn, and it read 7 turns left on the ToA. Our Celts had 5 turns to go on Feudalism, which my people revolted to as soon as they could. It took a turn more to finish the ToA also than could have happened, as I missed that I needed to raise the luxury slider upon becoming Feudal so 002 wouldn't revolt. It finished in 950 BC. In 1175, I had wines, dyes, ivory, silks, and gems hooked up. I also had a distant city near incense which took a while to hook up. I had 5 settlers, 29 workers, 3 warriors, and 24 cities by this point.
By 650 BC I had the incense online, I had spotted furs and spices and had settlers and workers moving around to hook them up. I had finished the SoZ in 690 BC. I had thought about taking Spain's territory as they lay closer to me than anyone else and they had some flood plains. But, I eventually decided on taking England's land, as they had a nice patch of green. That wouldn't happen for a while. I had 63 cities up, 12 settlers, 58 workers, and 3 warriors, at about 38% of the domination limit. Our (I'm the only one playing, I just use that in the manner an author says "our position is...") Celts had 2038 culture. The Celts learned Invention 2 turns later in 650 BC. Here's a 650 BC pic:
Spoiler :
There you might see that I have workers two tiles away from roaded squares. That usually would imply that I might have wasted worker turns. But, since it takes 3 turns for the Celts to road a square, it takes 2 turns for a worker to move to the same spot while the settler can found in the space between where you have roads and where your worker starts to road. For example, you can see this happening up near 054 in the aforementioned screenshot.
As I think Del62 pointed out somewhere else (thanks! I didn't think of this!), you don't need or even want roads everywhere in this sort of game. In truth, you'll save time and grow faster if you only build a basic road network to connect your cities and speed up any units that you might move around. Irrigation, and forest chopping happens more quickly if you build fewer rather than more roads. I think I ended up overdoing roads in this game, but just in case someone got aggressive on me I wanted a thorough road network to my borders.
Here's another pic from 650:
Spoiler :
In this pic you can see I have 10 shields in the box, and 4 citizens, so of course here I whip out a settler. Here's a less straightforward instance of where I whipped out a settler:
Spoiler :
You might see I have a city at size 4 with 5 food in the box, and 5 fpt. Now, the food at size 4 is NOT a guarantee that you can whip out a settler here for the next turn. In some situations where you can whip the city at size 4 and it reads "growth in 1 turn" it might turn to "growth in 2 turns" say if you have a bunch of irrigated grasslands, and you play as a non-agricultural tribe. The key lies in knowing how much food per turn you'll have as soon as you whip. Here we have two 2 food squares which match the population we lose by whipping, so the city will still have 5 food per turn after whipping. Thus, the city will drop to size 2, grow on the interturn, and produce the settler on the interturn also as food precedes production in the game sequence. Here's an example where whipping would NOT produce a settler the next turn:
Spoiler :
The difficulty lies in that if we whipped the settler here, we would have to lose one of the 3 food squares and the city would only have 5 fpt and thus not get back to size 3, as we need 6 fpt this turn to reach a larger next city size.
In 450 BC the Celts had completed research on Gunpowder, which yielded this:
Spoiler :
The furs would come online on the interturn. I had started a 4 turn run on Monarchy. I didn't have Monotheism yet, but I did have a few libraries up. I had 99 cities, 20 settlers, 83 workers, 2 warriors, and 2 ancient cavalry.
By 330 BC I had 2 turns left on Monotheism, 2 turns left on the Hanging Gardens, and I would hook up the spices on the next turn. Later on I would lose the spices for a few turns as I ended up disbanding a few cities here and there to not go over the domination limit upon cultural expansions. I had 124 cities, 17 settlers, 96 workers, 2 warriors, a medieval infantry, and 3 ancient cavalry. Around this time, I whipped a few medieval infantry from cities out near the English for the upcoming war. I also had some core cities on barracks/horsemen. By 290 BC I controlled 56% of the territory on the map.
In 250 BC I had 136 cities, 12 settlers, 109 workers, 2 warriors, 4 horsemen, 5 medieval infantries, and 4 ancient cavalries. Here's a shot of the English territory at that point:
Spoiler :
A few turns later I declared on the English and started taking their territory. By 130 BC I had shut off research, hap captured some English cities, had 15 settlers, 122 workers, 2 warriors, 12 horsemen, 6 medieval infantries, 5 ancient cavalries, and some 153 cities. I had some 10,412 culture with 63% of the territory on the map within my borders. By 10 BC the English were gone. I had some 14,580 culture and I had disbanded at least 3 of my former cities. In 130 AD I had 21,081 culture.
In 250 CE I had a deficit of some 101 gpt, with something like 806 gold in the bank. I did worry about going broke, but I did manage to get my economy stabilized before this happened. I had 28,121 culture by this point. I had 29,390 in 260 CE. Since that's 1269 cpt, had I not built anything else I would have won in 660 CE at this point. But, I still had some nice cathedrals, libraries, and colosseums to build. In 420 I felt sure I couldn't drop my finish date anymore, and with my economy stabilized by that point I started clicking the next turn button. Henry decided to talk to me one turn before finish:
Spoiler :
I gave him what he wanted, and stumbled over the 80k mark in 600 AD.
Thanks Pacioli. I honestly felt surprised that I finished that fast. I thought I might break 800, but not 700, and I really didn't expect to break Nikodemus's 100k date until I had started doing calculations. Then I had to double check myself, because I still didn't fully believe it. Looking at his saves though I can see that he didn't whip culture in his core (which I didn't do until I had cleared all the jungle near my core and had irrigated it, I also whipped in a few markets), and he built roads everywhere. 550 may well be possible, if not 500 or sub-500 with a high domination limit.
I like your avatar.
I like your avatar.
AutomatedTeller
Frequent poster
funny - I had much the same thought about roads... but continue to build them everywhere. Not sure why....
I know I overbuilt them. It almost feels like you're committing sacrilege if you don't build roads everywhere, doesn't it? I know my general rule, other than for developing the first square, for basically all other games has been "never leave a square without roading it."
del62
Deity
Excellent game spoonwood, it wasnt me that said about roads, but an excellent point nevertheless,
btw what were your map settings.
btw what were your map settings.
Brainiac18
Warlord
Hi, I've got a question.. I've played a game with settings like in the first post and when my culture reached 80k I got "Cultural victory" screen, so I have to press "Let me make some more turns..", reach 100k and only then submit this game in order to complete December Gauntlet?
Hi Braniac18. You do select the play more turns options but then just save and submit.
We call it "100K" because in vanilla you had to reach 100K culture irrespective of mapsize. For conquests the total culture required is different for each mapsize. 80K is the amount for a small map. (All of this assumes that you have more than twice the culture of each of your rivals.)
Brainiac18
Warlord
Right, thanks for the fast reply 
That's one reason I like to play SGL on the first tech or run more MapFinder. That does get frustrating.
I would do that, but:
1. My computer and MapFinder really don't get along well, so I pretty much have to do things by hand, and
2. With three grassland cows and a deer in the initial city radius, with enough rivers so that everything laid out for four potential settler factories (though shields were a bit problematic and running one or two as worker factories instead proved smarter), I was willing to give it a little longer than usual.
I may try that. Happily, I've got one going now that improved on that game at the 1000 BC benchmark by three cities -- and, far more importantly, two SGLs, for Polytheism and Monarchy via Philosophy. Aside from the minor detail of having no native luxuries (I'm working on it!), things are looking nice.
Pacioli
Prince
- Joined
- Oct 29, 2009
- Messages
- 418
I'm having this problem also. Generally, if I do not get an SGL within the first 2 or 3 techs researched, I roll another start.
