Outside the box. Shred the box.

[Noble Zarkon]

Hopefully that wasn't 2 turns from the end or something.

Well it was about 500 to go but it meant I had wasted 1,000 turns ......

 

[iggymnrr]

It's not clear what leader will be chosen for the next game. Mapfinder has saves with Mehmed, Frederick, Darius. And Darius/Frederick are confusing.

Hopefully that wasn't 2 turns from the end or something.

No, it wasn't. It was 1 turn from the end.

 

[Pangaea]

Well it was about 500 to go but it meant I had wasted 1,000 turns ......

Ouch again! That must have felt horrible.

 

[iggymnrr]

The idea was to get rid of some my tiles (mountains) to the AI to keep the dom limit under control. Meanwhile the gift city itself fetched two cities in return. Anyhoo, here's the final screen with a nice cascade of coins falling on Berlin. Perhaps the chariot should have healed first. A treaty might have been available by then...

 

[iggymnrr]

Okay so I have a Darius duel game almost done. Even money whether it beats the Mehmed attempt. The shocker is seeing Standard Ethanol at 152 beakers. It peaked at 176 beakers but coal and aluminum caused things to go wild. Cities have been in trade to keep from exceeding the dom limit. Gifted cities have been taken back. Taken cities have been gifted back. New Lisbon, Newer Lisbon, Newest Lisbon, New Oporto, Newer Oporto. Who has what any more?

GPs were good but a 2nd engineer would be sweet. A decision in at hand for the space elevator. Production problem is wild. Currently I have 19 cities and may yet have to gift another one ...

 

[iggymnrr]

I had to abandon the last attempt which was going to be 1 or 2 turns slower than the Mehmed game. That was before a flood wiped out the factory in an engine city. Net effect was going to be a 5 turn slower finish. On the bright side the Darius mapfinder seed has the blacksmith event for a free engineer. Time to run some more maps.

 

[iggymnrr]

Maps missing resources. Ugh. Seems like there has been a run of them. I have a Darius duel missing wheat that may be playable as civics at 2430 will be OR/bureaucracy/caste. Map seems a bit weak on corporate resources but was explored by turn 12. AI warriors ran into explored territory without popping any huts except one where I moved two turns instead of one. Game has been saved for possible continuation. Strategy is almost formulaic and this speedy CS was faster than testing.

 

[iggymnrr]

Experimenting with a small chieftain oasis map. I did find a pretty nice oasis city (screenshot) but the map had no gold, silver, or gems. Also missing was spices, bananas, and deer. And aluminum. This map is might be fun to try with Zara or any creative civ. A lot of cities could have an oasis.

 

[Anysense]

Oasis is a funny map. Not so funny when playing Space and... Whoops! There is no aluminium.

 

[iggymnrr]

It looks desirable to maximize opponents with Zara on the small chieftain oasis. T75 alphabet is in the cards with mega cash on hand (for math) and 4-5 cities to boot. Creative is useful for any border pops for gems or some such. There's plenty of time to finish conquest by 2000 BC with CS and probably currency in tow. Oracle-ing CS before currency is somewhat pointless having already teched alpha. BW doesn't seem too necessary early. Trading for it might work but AIs may not get it in time. Even theology before 1800 is looking fine. Fail gold may only be needed for the drive on banking. Fortunately there are many wonder options. Whipping courthouses for fail gold might be a 2 for 1 since tech trading isn't.

 

[iggymnrr]

Decent game with Zara going on a small oasis. This may not be the best map size for creative. Domination comes way too fast. I had to go state property to get that GP for the last golden age. MoM city had to be gifted quickly so Mining Inc. got delayed. Still gifting cities ...

 

[Anysense]

Creative is a horrible trait for such games. I suppose you are just doing stuff for quattromaster? I find it very irksome even to get an accidental spread of my state religion, particularly on smaller maps where every border pop is a lot of %.

 

[iggymnrr]

Launched Zara at 615 AD on the small oasis. Challenges still remain in the post launch phase. Wonder fail gold strategy ended in gifting Mansa a lot of cities with wonders: Oracle, Parthenon, MoM, Stonehenge, GL, Pyramids. He can only take one-ish more cities from me. Two may have to be gifted to stay under the dom limit. There is still a scouting warrior roaming around I think. Perhaps a DoW may be needed to unload a city. It may be near my ironworks city ...

Score should be good enough for tiebreaks. Dry rice with sugar start. And 4 gems.

 

[iggymnrr]

It might be time to see what Julius can do on a standard sized chieftain map. Mehmed may work better but starts with two techs less. A large or huge map would be best for him. (Bronze and Math can be assumed as well as a worker to go with early settled cities: worker chop worker, chop granary, chop courthouse. That might be 40+ cities by 2000 BC with 80+ workers, 30 granaries and 30 courthouses. Insane.) But Julius isn't bad either. Then there is always the Darius temptation. Cities like the screenshot attached. That's EnviroMills - environmentalism with Cereal Mills and windmills.

Now the idea of state property -> Standard Ethanol comes to mind...

 

[iggymnrr]

Almost finished with Julius on a standard size chieftain. Weird start. Rome was founded on sugar ~3640 BC. It had a sugar for food and some flood plains. Also a brown cow in 2nd ring. The capitol had been established ~turn 15 in Timbuktu. So Rome needed a border pop for those cows! The map is big enough to reduce alphabet to meaningless-ness. So I tried for polytheism and got its holy city in Rome. Gandhi and Issy were in the game too. AH, BW and pottery came from huts soon enough. Any alphabet line would have lost beakers due to hut popping partially teched techs. That's the main reason for hiding in religious techs until the hut popping phase is done. (And not click on CoL right away as the first tech path.)

 

[iggymnrr]

590 AD with Julius on a standard sized chieftain map. Easily a new record but it doesn't seem as fast as Darius. Darius may have done the standard sized settler with only 28 cities and state property. Here Julius tried 56 cities and corps. Tech cost isn't 2x. But Mining Inc was 50 hammers and SE was 60 beakers.

 

[iggymnrr]

Gilgamesh seems to have interesting possibilities on the lower levels. CoL/CS may not be as urgent as Banking. On a big enough map Currency has a fair chance to come from huts. A non-creative, organized civ pays 450 hammers for a courthouse/library. That costs Gilgamesh only 405 hammers. How fast can he get to mercantilism?

 

[iggymnrr]

310 AD space win with Gilgamesh on a huge, round chieftain map with state property. This compares to a 320 AD space win with Pericles on a huge flat chieftain map with 3 corporations. Railroad was teched followed by the trek to Fusion and then to Rocketry. This allowed for workers to be commissioned to lay tracks from the capitol to the Ironworks city so that the engineer could get there in time to 1-turn the Ironworks enabling the Apollo Program to be 1-turn chopped. The ship was then 1-turn built and launched soon afterwards.

But Gilgamesh's wonder fail gold approach was slow compared to Darius's brute force. In about 20 turns Darius can have 2 workers chop a courthouse, develop some food, and lay down a cottage. With about a cottage per city each courthouse would be worth about 4 gold and each cottage would be worth another 4 gold. For a 50-city empire, that's saving 200 gold per turn while generating 200 gold per turn. Or about 20,000 gold in 50 turns. Resource-less, cheap courthouses seem better than fail gold which is a revenue source that can be tapped but expansion is so fast that it is hard to do. Mercantilism by 1750ish BC implies the ability to put more coins on soil via windmills. No wonder the Hagia Sophia is a top priority.

 

[iggymnrr]

Trying Darius out on a huge chieftain map. Turn 75 and the map is almost explored. Oracle can be used for theology. But had drama and music come from huts the artist could be used to bulb theology. The GP preference chart indicates alphabet is not an bulb option for BTS and testing shows this to be true. So the Hagia Sophia can be built while teching CoL and thus used for chopping cheap courthouses. As many settlers would all be settling around this time, music would also allow for border pops. Early mercantilism would be the goal. Parthenon would be useful to help with an engineer bulb. I'm wondering how long exploration cash will last with ultra fast courthouses. There aren't many options for wonder fail gold as nothing is hooked up and I have to build them myself... Of course we would also have fast cottages and maybe windmills to play around with. Workers aren't a problem. Settle city with a worker, chop worker and pre-chop courthouses.

 

[iggymnrr]

Darius. Yeah Darius. I have a game going where Darius is playing more like Xerxes. And Leonidas is wishing he had brought 303. Things are larger than life. A wonder was renamed. Democracy was libbed and the statue of Xerxes was built in 1100 BC. Despite the financial inconvenience of extra coins we're on a massive bulbing spree. Who is that chap named Pericles? If this game were Stargate there would be an obvious exhortation.