QSC-c1 "Irritated Mao" game progress.

[Charis]

Thanks for all your work running this game, cracker!

Good job to Jaxom and the others who finished the race - I think we'll all learn some nice tips from those reports - tnx Zenga for those links, I look forward to reading them

I was glad to see the Excel spreadsheet available, there was some analysis I was quite interested in doing. I primarily wanted to test to see how close the QSC points were to a pure exponential function. To my surprise, VERY close. I took all the scores, took their logs, then did linear regressions. I was expecting it to be a "straight line" plot vs the turn number, but a much better fit was obtained using the actual year. (Firaxis did a nice job with the decreasing years per turn, at least in this regard )

A second thing I wanted to check was the settler effect. (Cracker's 3400BC pop). I figured one of three things would happen: i) his curve alone would fail to be a straight line, but rather one that decreased with time, ii) he would have a slope very similar to all of ours, with a shift in the intercept, iii) there would still be a straight line, with an increased slope. Does that make sense? I know math junkies are following me...

Here's the plot, of Log(QSC score) vs Year



The result was #3, not really what I expected

If you extrapolate cracker's "terminal" slope back to the origin, it hits 4000BC +/- 50 years. Also, there is a "bump" in his score post-3400BC, but in fact the terminal slope is quite strong, and not monotonically decreasing. How much of an increase from the settler is hard to tell, without cracker replaying w/o it, or by assuming his score would have been 'average' - a poor assumption)

Regarding the games in general, the slopes are as follows:
(These use final year log-QSC and starting point, not full linear regressions - time was short)

Player    Overall   Terminal
cracker   1.230   1.154
charis    1.115   1.300
zenga     1.124   1.318
lee       1.093   1.144
meldor    1.047   1.193
jaxom     1.132   1.295
steve     1.084   1.121
borea     1.091   1.258
sjf       1.173   1.421
hotrod    1.105   1.190
stwils    0.822   0.869
swift     1.151   1.192
theos     1.081   1.403

(Overall is (ln(qsc_170)-ln(qsc_4000)) / (4000-170) * 1000 -- avg was 1.096
The terminal one uses 1525BC to 170BC instead)

Conclusions -
i) the QSC score may be accurately represented by a monoexponential in year
ii) an early settler pop increases your growth coefficient
iii) a good player can sustain this higher growth rate
(Corollary A - cracker played extremely well and took great
advantage of his good start - no surprise there)
iv) some of the choices for opening strategy don't show an
increase in growth rate until much later, nearly 0AD
(These show up as lines on the plot that start to shoot up at the end, and as higher 'terminal' slopes)

I'll post my final launch story and report tonight - I can't for the life of me remember the year!
Charis

 

[Charis]

I went home for lunch, and so can give this report summary...

- 10 BC - First Rider victory, kicks off GA
- 190 AD - Sistine completed in Canton (would have missed by 1 turn if not for GA)
- 230 AD - Great leader #3, makes a Rider Army
- 320 AD - Americans eliminated. I bust a gut laughing when Iro demand tribute next turn. I decline, they were bluffing.
- 370 AD - Xerces demands Chemistry, I tell him to blow off, he declares war. We eliminate his city in our hemisphere and ignore him
- 440 AD - GL#4, "Genghis Khan" - pretty appropriate Rushed Bach
- Metalurgy is the only MA tech my AI helps me get
- 470 AD - We enter Industrial Ages, not quite reaching 4 turn research however - library infrastructure is near non-existent. Any research we're doing is through sheer number of cities. Wall Street in a few turns stems the tide, and after Steam and Industrial we do 4 turns each for rest of Industrial
- 510 AD We declare war on Russia, after just recently declaring on Iro - we're purging our continent, as I don't want to see Irritator floods later
- 620 AD - Persia unwisely attacks my eastern colony and loses. I buy in the whole world against him in alliance (a poor move, as it just slows down the AI and I don't need their help. They never did attack me again)
- 840 AD - on the turn we research Combustion, ToE arrives and we snag AT and Elec, Hoover completes in 1000AD
- 1010 AD - Finish Flight and enter Modern Era, but can't research in 4 8-\ Well, we can with a huge deficit which we run. Then we gift the AI tech. *FOURTEEN* tech, that's how far behind they are!! (In all but space race, a very good thing )
- The gifts mean we get Ecology and Rocketry for trade, saving 8 turns
- 1060 AD - I take almost an hour to put as many workers on taxmen as I possibly can, and net an extra +50gpt income! This is enough to hit 4turn research (phew!)
- 1100 AD - The sci allies research something... Espionage
- Next turn, they research more.... Sanitation 8-(
- 1190 AD it's close enough to finishing I stop micromanaging my 100 workers
- 1270 AD - STILL no help whatsoever from the AI, we start our last tech, Satellites. Next turn we complete SETI and UN.
- 1290 AD - We finish research, scroll ahead to finish the SS Thrusters and...

Space Victory in 1290 AD.

I've not played a space game with this much total focus on the launch date, especially constant 4 turn self-research and no optional techs. It was fun in that my infrastructure was lagging and I had to totally manage things well to strain to get 4 turns, and was able to do so completely from mid- middle ages, with just Steam Power taking 5. Couple that in with perfect ToE timing, and using tech gifts to get 2 Modern techs, and the finish of my game was as perfect as I could have hoped for.

1290 is a middle-of-the-pack result here, which confirms the pure military opening had a huge space advantage but was NOT converted into an earlier launch. I conquered my whole hemisphere, but of course most cities were hopelessy corrupt. I was able to taxmen them for 50gpt, but my core lagged behind in library, university and bank building, giving no overall advantage. Plus I got NO help from the AI whatsoever, except for their "free" techs, and even then after giving them over a dozen.

The replay was brutal to watch, but fun. AI cities disappeared as fast as they showed up.
We had top city (Beijing, 5 wonders) and 3 of top five (Canton,3, Shanghai,4, two each).
Total number of wonders built: 12, 1 captured, Iron Works, Epic, CIA, Wall Street built.
Tally: 78 cities, 5546g + 255gpt at end (lux ok at 0%). Republic all the way.
191 units including 67 workers, plus 42 liberated foreign workers.
Civ culture: 24,514. Beijing: 3469, FP was in Delhi. Great Leaders: 4
Final score: 6233, Mao the Magnificent, pretty good for Monarch.
That's my fifth high score, top space victory, and top Chinese score.

The mini-map from an earlier post showed it - my hemisphere was empty of India and America from early on, so triple the amount of land to expand into, BUT I actually had less cities than other folks. And the lack of libraries was infamous

Zenga's finish seemed similar to mine, catching 4 turn for all but same two as me. And that GA for Hoover, saved Zenga the ONE turn (s)he beat me by The treehug... er... outstanding game posted by Jaxom was about 16 turns ahead, saving 3 turns in Industrial with his strong research, one turn in Modern due to his getting hospitals and big core cities (none of mine ever exceeded 12), same AI help in MA (Engr and Metallurgy for me) and so 8 other turns due to a faster and better researching start. Possibly his non-wiped-out neighbors got one or two techs end of ancient.

Here's a map at the end, note all the lovely blue on minimap...


Anyway, a *very* interesting game, and (to me) an interesting finding that pure expansion beats a military expansion - at least on a difficulty where you have no problem peacefully expanding to a full-sized core. The big "what-if" for my game is - after my VERY early whacking of England and Zulu with a very few archers, if I had forsaken further military action, fired the Genghis, and went full-bore building? I may play that through 100BC and see how it compares to my actual game.

Charis

 

[SJ Frank]

Originally posted by meldor
Well, it is clear to see were the gambit of filling outside in has left my empire. I had wondered if grabbing those points far from home and then backfilling would be good or bad and this answers it. The extra growth you get from the lowere corruption counts even in the early going. I think I will have to play a more standard opening in the next one. Most interesting.

I don't think the outside-in filling strategy is wrong. I also used that strategy and turned out okay. My first settler founded Shanghai close to the capital. My second settler went way out to grab the Gem near the Zulus. My third settler grabbed the Indian fur. My fourth settler went to a spot south of the English wine city to seal off the borders. Only then, did I start filling back-in.

I think the reason that I was able to keep up with the others in expansion was because I irrigated the cow. That allowed me to reach +5 food, and with a granary, 4-turn pace on settler production. That's a whole 50% improvement on anyone that mined the cow. The cost? Not much, perhaps military. I had to build nothing but regular warriors in order to keep up with the expansion pace for a long time. But since no one attacked me, I was able to get away with it.

* * *

As for my game, I still haven't finished yet. I was, however, able to get a great leader during the attack on Newcastle, and rushed the FP in London. So things look good. I have never played a space race with the goal of fastest launch before. So expect some weed moves from here-on-out. For example, I was very suprised to read Jaxom's move of letting the AI research Sanitation for him, but after thinking about it, it definitely makes sense in this context.

I will probably get it done tonight, maybe very late tonight

 

[zenga]

Here's a screen shot of my final expansive empire.

Just goes to show there's many ways to play to arrive at the same result. (Although Charis scored nearly 2000 more points!)



And, for a laugh, here's my massive military at the end!

 

[JaxomCA]

As promise by the Ming Dynasty, a reservation was set aside for the Genghis clan.



@Charis: I wanted to see if the AI would help or not, so I avoided hurting them in any way, and this included passing up many workers in the early years. This hurted my growth a little but I hoped to get some payback later on, which turned out not to be that much after all. If I try this kind of game again, I will sell workers to the AI to see if they will keep up.

@Meldor: I don't think your outward/in hurt as much as not letting your city grow soon enough.

@SJFrank: With the small size of my empire, there were 2 optional tech I needed to be able to maintain 4 turns/tech, Economics for the added gold on wealth and Sanitation to grow my cities to size 20. Economics came soon enough, but I was on my last tech at 4 turns when the AI managed to discover Sanitation. I had about 60 workers ready to merge in as soon as hospitals were built and I would have researched Sanitation myself as my next tech. If you have 2 fully developped cores, you don't need hospitals.

@Zenga: Steam power was going to take me 5 turns at 100% science. I had a couple of cities at size 10, so I merged workers in to raise them to 12. It was still taking 5 turns, so I went through my cities one by one, selecting the tiles with the most commerce even by creating a food deficit. It was still due in 5 turns. Just for the heck of it, I made some scientists in cities which had only 1 commerce anyway, 2 of them was enough to give me a 4 turns rate. I believe that would be an extreme in micro-management.

 

[stwils]

Hi everyone,

Just want to say I enjoyed being in Cracker's game with you. Thanks for all the charts and helpful comments.

As you can see, I did not fare very well. Just look at the comparison maps.

Nevertheless it was a great learning experience. I was out of my league here and I know that now. Still it was wonderful for me to be in touch with the best Civ3 players and to be a part of this.

I will not be going on beyond what I agreed to with Cracker. I think it would probably take forever for me to launch a space ship.

stwils

 

[Charis]

Jaxom, that screenshot was precious, I'm truly honored!
[plasma]

btw, great job micromanaging to get 4 workers by swapping worker tiles. I thought I was going overboard to do that, but as it did for you, it was the difference between 4 turn and 5 turn research. 60 workers waiting to merge into sanitized cities? wow.
I didn't so much have a dual core so much as a sprawl - 78 cities was a lot to manage, but obviously total productivity did not scale. You're right though, leaving the AI alone did not significantly help you. Probably 4 turn gain at most?? Bringing the sci civs along for the ride was a 8 turn gain which we both made, and micromanaging "saved" 1-2 turns. That still leaves an unaccounted for 4-8 turns that your early game gave. I'll have to look over my more detailed notes, but I think I may have shot myself in the foot not kicking into full-research mode sooner, going one tech too far with near min-science. At that stage in the game I was not clued in yet that every single extra turn to learn a tech would *directly* lead to a one turn delay in the launch. This doesn't apply in deity! (I'm not sure if it does on Emperor)

> "Economics for the added gold on wealth"
Well, true enough, that's not a benefit I usually consider, tnx for the tip!

Looking at the growth "slopes" yours was quite good. It will be interesting to see when swift and SJF launch. Cracker's launch date will be about as close as you get to "theoretically earliest launch date" for Monarch diff!

Stwils, nice having you along for the ride - I'm sure by implementing a lot of what you've seen you'll notice a big improvement in your next few games!

Charis

 

[LKendter]

When they launched:
Jaxom - 1170 AD
Zenga - 1285 AD
Charis - 1290 AD
lee - 1315 AD (I would have BEATEN *two* players if I did the tech gift program!)
hotrod - 1410 AD
steve - 1480AD
stwils - I think it would probably take forever for me to launch a space ship.

Still waiting for the results:
Cracker
Meldor
borea
sjf
swift
theos


Sometimes one or two subtle mistakes can kill you. If I did the wines city like Jaxom, I would have saved MULTIPLE turns on the launch date with a higher research rate. I never would have guessed the other continent to be that close, so if I build the galley, it would have helped a lot.

 

[zenga]

Originally posted by JaxomCA


@Zenga: Steam power was going to take me 5 turns at 100% science. I had a couple of cities at size 10, so I merged workers in to raise them to 12. It was still taking 5 turns, so I went through my cities one by one, selecting the tiles with the most commerce even by creating a food deficit. It was still due in 5 turns. Just for the heck of it, I made some scientists in cities which had only 1 commerce anyway, 2 of them was enough to give me a 4 turns rate. I believe that would be an extreme in micro-management.

I never went to quite that length with the micro-managing!

I played the turns after 120 in one sitting and, like most players, could do a bit better if I had to do it again. Lee's point about the wines was good also, in my game it took the English a long time to hook them up (maybe another good reason to gift or sell workers) and hence my markets never had great effect for allowing pop growth.

...and after reading Charis' post I realised that I forgot to scroll through the city screens at the end too!

 

[cracker]

Sorry, but the file size combined with other commitments is just going to prohibit me from consumating the final space launch. By 200 AD we are already up to turns transitions in excess of 7 to 10 minutes each and save files in excess of 150MB per turn.

I think everyone did an outstanding job here and in retrospect I can reveal that the designed intent of this game was for a screaming tech rate and maximum trading swapping and other wise cajoling and prodding the AI along as a tech partner.

For reference, the map tech factor at 120 was at one half the normal factor which translated into the possibility of research at almost double the normal pace except for the 4 turn minimum constraint.

The data produced by this game will provide many people with outstanding examples for comparing different approaches to a common situation in a step by step fashion.

I know that I will use it as a reference and an example to help teach others some very specific tricks and tools to use in managing trade and techs.

One of the reasons, China was chosen as the civ was to have an industrious worker base but show no cost preference to either science or religious buildings in the queue. I wanted to see how different people approached the problems of deciding what to build when the stated objective was Space Race (ie. science) but the long term problem statement would require happiness boost in some way. Even though I specified these extra constraints in the game I could not actually be certain how Kevin would implement the 4 luxury constraint or where those luxuries would be placed.

The scientific civ placement in the game was all specified in the problem statement because I wanted to see an example of how segregation of the trait groups away from the early impact of our natural militaristic tendencies might spur faster research. The screaming early tech pace was surely more of a function of the Expansionist tech whoring than the internal research factors. Just looking back at the data charts from before turn 90 shows that clearly the players that exploited tech trading leverage at every opportunity were dominating the race.

Charis played a great game example that is worthy to note, not just because of the maiming, hacking, hewing and other gratuitous bloodshed but because this game format is designed for the players to think strategically about what their game plan might be and then to play that game plan to the extreme limits and then compare back to other players. Having Charis do this in the game provides and outstanding reference point that we acn use to project different success rates. In the turn 120 time frame Charis is clearly the most powerful civilization in his world but the early warmongering made his world a poorer place because the AI players lake the skills and abilities to compensate and fill in teh gaps.

On a higher level, this game format exposes a level of depth to the play concepts that I find absolutely fascinating. The concept the total power of the world around you crafts the speed at which the ultimate victor reachs the final goal means that the human player has a much greater challenge built into the game when you consider big picture issues such as trying to manipulate a relative flacid opponent base into contributing some backbone and substance to the game.

I also find it fascinating to look at the save files and observe the differences in development of the AI civs (particularly India and Germany) in these games. In my game India and Germany were totally worthless. In most of the games, Germany and Greece both lacked the strategy sense or even short term tactical processing to fill into the peninsular space just across the sea from our home world.

One thing that really shows up in the game is that I continue to be the advocate and champion of using the workers to maximize power at least in the early game. I would bet that if we had a toggle function that would turn on a bright flashing light for tile locations that had been forested or reforested and harvested that we would have another insight into some areas where we might push our games to new and higher levels.

In the 170bc save point I had 44 workers (41 if you adjust out the free Shanghai effect). Swiftsure was in second place with 26 workers and a number of players had fewer than 10 workers. With an industrial civ, I would think that haveing fewer workers abandons one of your key advantages. Even using Ghengis Charis's 17 slaves at half strength, he was down at barely a dozen worker equivalents. The AI cannot manage workers effectively and this cripples them as soon as the humans gain any sort of parity or equilibrium.

Charis's work with the log normalization of the power expansion rates is exactly the kind of work that supports better understanding the game. We can also find a number of interesting correlations to success in various scenarios by monitoring specific ratios of worker availability and the commerce output that can be direct to one of several uses.

To our less experienced players, I again appluad you for participating actively at every stage. This game thread is a Christmas present that you have purchased for yourself through hard work and perserverence. I will be reviewing the turns reports and data as part of my Christmas present to me (along with a few Black & Tans) and I hope you will quaff and read as well. I know I will see you again in other game events and you will do yourself great honor with the skilsl you have acquired by playing in this game.

Just thanks to all players and Happy Holidays,

cracker

 

[cracker]

On a Query note:

I would like to see if any players had experiences with the two irritator units??

or occasion to use the Migrants??

or if anyone detoured off into Advanced flight land to play with the expanded Helicopters?

All of these features were added to the game primarily to add diversion and some optional dimension for any players that made it into these time zones but may have lost interest in the space race challenge.

 

[Charis]

cracker, thanks for your kind words!

I saw both the Irritator unit in my game, shuffling in the distance near my eastern continent colony. Remembering their 4 defense and only having riders to confront them, and knowing how cheap they were to produce, this was one factor in driving all the AI from my continent as soon as I could. (I would have anyway, but this made me do it sooner rather than later)

I actually made pretty extensive use of the migrants - I had a *boatload* of cities, and I built the *very* cheap migrants in my totally corrupt fishing towns and sent them to my fully mined FP core area in India, to build it up pretty nicely. I also had about a dozen migrants stashed and waiting, for Sanitation. But it came so darn late in the game I never built a single hospital. And sadly, no, I didn't divert to Advanced Flight and helicopters. Now had the AI researched it, I would have bought it and played around

Too bad about your save file explosion, ouch! If you could give the number of techs you are from/into the nearest age at that time, we could assume 4-turn research through game end and give an approximate launch date. Given how you managed everything else, I expect a ToE with no waste, and 2 modern tech gifts from sci civs, as Jaxom and I (and others) did.

btw, in comparing my launch date with others and trying to figure out where *specifically* I got slowed down, it's still hard to see - sure my AI's were weak, but surprisingly they also were almost negligible in other folks games too. But then I think I found my main problem - in the middle-end of ancient era I mistakenly went after Monarchy, at min sci! Then I kept at it for 33 turns, and bought it from someone, then revolted - to Republic!! At the time I could have researched a non-optional tech in 8-16 turns, depending on the tech. This was not a 33 turn loss, in that I ended up buying most of the remaining ancient techs from the AI anyway, but it definitely a non-optimal choice. I wish I could say how many turns it lost - if <7, the remaining 'slowness' to launch was the military strategy, but if it was >7 or 8, then we're falsely attributing my sluggishness to the choice of military tactics

Charis

 

[JaxomCA]

As my game was war free, I didn't see many Irritators walkng around. I know the Zulu were using them a lot after India took away half their cities.

I used only 1 migrant to try it out but my only city I could sacrifice to making pop for other cities was perfectly balanced to produce a worker every turn going between size 6 and 7 so I was better off with making workers rather than migrants.

It is unfortunate about the save game size, I wanted to see what choices you would have made through the late eras. At the 170 BC save point, you had a 10 turns lead on me. I expected one less tech to you from the AI in the Middle Ages because you were so much ahead of them in research power. Getting 2 different tech from scientific AI entering the modern times is somewhat lucky, so you may have missed another tech there. That means you would launch at least 2 turns before I did, 3 if you built the last space ship part on the same turn you discovered the tech.

It is also unfortunate you had a free settler, I think your expansion phase was very strong, even without the free settler. I would have liked to see the "raw data" from you startup strategy but as Charis pointed out, the free settler puts you ahead of the pack and your playing skills made it impossible for any of us to catch up.

Charis, I think your biggest delay was the relatively late date you entered the Republic, as you were depending on the AI to supply you with the knowledge. The mathematician in you might want to look at the correlation between the year the Republic was entered and the launch date. The Republic alone will not do it, but it provides the player with the means to quickly setup the library/marketplace needed.

 

[SJ Frank]

I just did finished my game. I launched in 1210, exactly 4 turns after Jaxom's launch. Here are some of the milestone dates:

90BC -- Attack on the final English town. Got a great leader on the next-to-last battle.
70BC -- FP rushed in London.
110AD -- Beijing completes Copernicus's Observatory, my first wonder.
280AD -- Entering the Industrial Age. 5-turn research on Stream (the only 5-turn'er)
430AD -- Built Newton's in Beijing.
550AD -- Russians sneak attacked me! The Persians soon followed in a seperate sneak attack. Babylonian also signed alliance with the Russians a few turns later. I did get another GL from this war. I used him to rush to ToE so that I don't have to worry about timing it.
680AD -- I sued for peace.
840AD -- Got Sanitation from AI's.
850AD -- Entering the modern age. After gifting 11 techs to all AI's on the other continent, all the scientific AI's turned up with Rocketry
880 AD -- Finally, trade routes opened to the other continent. lux down to 0.
1030AD -- To add a little suspense into things, my only Aluminum packs up and leaves. I ended up stealing one from one of the German cities that haven't yet to expand borders. I also had the backup plan in place, I sat a few of my workers on some unconnected Babylonian aluminum, so that I could connect it and trade for it in time of need.
1210 AD -- launch, score = 5400

I was able to do 4-turn research the entire way except for Steam. I managed only two techs from AI's after the 170BC break -- Gun Powder and Rocketry. I think Jaxom got Ecology from one of the scientific AI's, which saved him four extra turns. That was the difference in our launch date Is there something that I could have done to increase the chance of getting different techs?

Irritators:
Boy, I saw a lot of them, I think the entire Russian army was staffed with these guys , but I never did get to fight one of them though. The AI's were mostly using them as the defensive unit in the defense/offense pair. In the case of my war, the offensive unit was the long bow. I did not want to risk my infantry in attacking the 4-defense unit, since it was just a much better deal to wait for them to attack me, and the AI, well, they have the habbit of fortifying instead of attacking with the last unit in their stack when the unit was a defensive one.

Migrant:
I did build a few of these, just to see what they're like. They were not game breakers in my game. There were two factors. One, I had trouble keeping my core cities happy through out the whole game. For the most part, it wasn't a matter of too little population. When I finally did find some need for migrate population, it was too little, too late, because I already had enough of a core to generate 4-turn research for the rest of the game. The second factor was that all of my cities were quite productive. Most of them were at better than 50% wastage after a courthouse. In this situation, most of the cities are on infrastructure instead of making migrant populations. I did have one flipped Zulu city that had about a 10 sheld/1.5 pop ratio (i.e. right in between a migrant and a worker). In that case, I'd still rather have a worker, since the worker is also useful in other capacities. I ended up building 3 migrants, and at the height, had about 60 workers.

Cracker: Thank you for running this game. It was a new, interesting, fun, and learning experience for me. Even though the game is finished, I know that the learning is not over yet for me. I will definitly pickup your save games and look through it. With or without that extra settler, you had a better quick start than anyone of us. There is definitely a lot to be learned.

 

[theos]

Theos - the rest of my game...

At the end of turn 120, I turn on research for the first time in ages. Has relying on the Great Library slowed me down too much? I am preparing a rider invasion of England.

280 AD - War with England begins. Golden Age. 5 turn techs.
360 AD - Eliminate the English. Forbidden Palace hurried in London. 4 turn techs.
400 AD - War with India begins.
460 AD - Eliminate the Indians.
480 AD - Golden Age ends. Results in Metallurgy in 5 turns.
490 AD - War with Zululand begins.
520 AD - Enter the Industrial Age. 4 turn techs until the end.
640 AD - Eliminate the Zulu.
1120 AD - Greece declares war on us. Russia is forced to declare war on us because of a MPP.
1130 AD - Enter the Modern Age.
1240 AD - Eliminate the Greeks.
1270 AD - Eliminate the Russians.
1290 AD - War with America begins. Persians declare war on us.
1295 AD - Apollo Program completed and spaceship construction begins.
1310 AD - Peace with America after removing their presence on the west continent.
1320 AD - Peace with Persia.
1365 AD - All ship parts except for the Party Lounge complete.
1395 AD - Space Race victory.

Slower than most, I know, and when I've the time, I'm going to try and trade my way into tech parity rather than relying on the Library.

 

[theos]

With respects to the new units...

I used the migrant a tiny bit just before hospitals but after some conquests. More often than not, a settler would have been just as good.

Irritators were frequently seen in my wars. It may have actually made the wars easier, as the ai seems to have relied on them too much - building only one for defence when they needed rifles or infantry. The biggest irritation came when I forgot about their 2 movement points, and one of them managed to capture an unoccupied city!

 

[Charis]

I've been thinking alot about this game, and the fine points of the space race, and just had something left to do before I could let this rest... replay the opening with a non-military strategy!

I'll post the moves here, then in a followup post, some score results and game comparison.

4000 BC - Found where we start, research pottery, start granary placeholder as rax.
Worker heads to irrigate towards the cow immediately.

3700 BC - No mil, so worker hits hut, gets Bronze. Then builds road and returns to cow.

3650 BC - Next up is Alphabet and Writing towards Literature and Republic.
*10* 3550 BC -

3200 BC - It's set now that granary due in 3, growth (to size 3) in 2.

We've done zero scouting, so hard to know where settler will go. We see a river and
flood plains up north, so probably up there. Worker starts a road up there.

*20* 3050 BC - saved

2800BC - Worker starts a chop for next settler.
2710 BC - settler moves onto forest-river square for less overlap, and ends
up next to a dye. Great place to settle.
2670 BC - Shanghai founded and starts a... worker! Next settler won't explore
either, and will go south river, next one will continue past Shanghai up river.

*30* 2590 BC - saved

2550 BC - Eliz warr comes by. She has our techs plus Wheel, CB and writing. 8-\
Our south settler climbs a hill and sees wheat, BG's, and lake or coast to west.
2430 BC - Settler has found his spot to found, and it's next to a hut. That means
we'll safely pop it on founding. We do, Canton, and get... nothing, it's deserted. 8-\
It starts our first warrior.
2390 BC - Liz has met Indians and Zulus.
2350 BC - Where to send next settler? East of capital we see coast and gold hills,
will be a nice symmetric low corruption build. Other choice is SW to cow. We'll do
that next, after warr scouts it.
2270 BC - Our warr due in 1 - good thing, a barb pops into view, 2 away.
Nanking founded on coast, starts warr. Whoa, almost caught off guard. Founding
the latter increased corruption and set warr to 2 turns away. We swap to forest
to make him next turn for the incoming barb!
2230 BC - We start Math, as a low priority item for AI, to hope to trade, since
we're rather far behind already. Our warr fortifies rather than attacks, as we're
across river. (He wins mid-turn)

*40* 2190bc - save, as spice is brought into town. Shanghai starts granary which
may become temple if we learn burial in time.

2110 BC - Furs seen below cow, making it a nice spot.
2030 BC - We see orange borders west of Canton. Our settler can go oppose him,
or settle the furs. We move toward the furs unless our scout comes up with more info.

1950BC - The 'Happiest Nation' report lists us first
Ah, we see it's called York, and has several wines. I'll assume for now that we
capture that city later, and so do NOT found near it.
1910 BC - first barb camp disperse, and see it's on yet another fur.

1870 BC - Here's something the Genghis would never pass up - we see a barb at York
knock down the single conscript defender to 1hp! If our entire army wasn't as small
as 3 reg warrs I might take advantage there. 8-\

*50* 1790bc - save - founded Tsingtsao, starts worker

1750 Xinjian founded next to cow and dyes.
1725BC - We do land Math, and talk to Liz. Unfortunately, I can't get enough for it
without more contacts. My scouts push up north as fast as they can. 8-\
We start Code of Laws.
1700BC - Goody hut gets... warrior.
1650BC - Gems seen up north, but... far away. Still, it's on a river with food. Or...
there's a western choke spot too, with dye and fur. We chose... neither, instead
going to expand our core ring safely, and on a river. Quality cities this game.
1625BC - Goody hut by gems, 50g. Shoot, not much tech from huts for me this game.
1600BC - American scout seen. I just beat him to the hut. Abe has a worker for sale for
26g. I see he and Liz have math, so I got nothing instead of little for it. 8-|
1575BC - Chengdu is founded near western choke. On exact opposite side, is an English
setter. Alas, his side has the fur. We disperse camp#2 up north.

We meet India, who is a little more behind. He lacks math, and has Wheel, Burial and
Iron, while America also has Philosophy, and England has that and Map Making.
We're due for Code real soon, hopefully can get a four-fer!?

*60* 1525bc - save, as we finally meet Zulus, same turn we research Code of Laws.
They're on par with India. England can give Warrior Code, TM, Philosophy, and 49g
for Code! Being what I thought was behind, I'm surprised to see in game score China
is well on top. To Shaka, Philo for Burial,TM+16g, then Math for Wheel+20g. To India,
Philo for Mysticism. To Abe, Code of Laws for HBR and 28g. Back to Gandhi with
Math and CoL for MapMaking,TM+5. I give Abe a good deal, MapMaking for his WM.
Then Zulu for last trade, CoL for WM+7. We're warned Zulus have betrayed Americans.
We note both only have 3 cities. England has 4, India 5, China 7 + settler i.p.
We're now at tech parity, a whopping 250g, and biggest civ. Next phase we keep
expanding, get a ship going, and try to make more contacts. Nanking galley in 6.

We DO have iron in range, two spots, neither hooked up (fine while building warr MP)
Also see horses, two visible. One near core, other right on Northern choke.
With few defenders, excess cash, more land area for RoP, cautious neighbors and
not-so-expensive embassies, I establish them all. We're just 3 techs short of
Middle Age, btw, and of course want Republic and Lit too.

1475BC - England declares war on India. Well that was out of the blue.
1425BC - Hangchow founded SE next to horses.
1400BC - Camp#3 dispatched to SE. Galley sets sail...
1375BC - Tientsin founded on West coast. Like most cities, starts a worker first.
Our galley kills a barbarian galley and is across the tiny channel.
Next round we get FP msg. Zulus and America come to peace.
1350BC - German contact - he lacks Philo and Code of Laws, has five communications.
Too pricey, I'll need one more contact first.
1325BC - We finish Polythesim, start Currecny due in 10.
1300BC - Our galley very narrowly esacpes its second barb galley, but wins.
Poly sold to England for Lit+WM+1g.

*70* 1275bc - Our ship runs into Greece. Time to make contacts and trade tech.
Poly to Germany gets Iro and Persia contact. Both of those have construction
Poly to Greece for last two contacts+TM. Lit+Poly+27g to Iro for Construction.
Lit+Constr to Greece for their (nice) WM. Then we give the other techs out cheap
or for WM to all the new sci civs. We're 8 turns from Currency and the new age.

1125BC - Dispersed TWO barb camps. One other barb horse does an end-around, and I
plant embassies to avoid a big plunder.
Athens due Oracle in 17, 9spt. Persia due Pyramids in 82 at 4spt. Salamanca
due Oracle in 10 at 6spt.

1100 BC - We hit Middle Ages on researching Currency. Alas, not 4 research turns anymore,
but more like 11. Enough expansion, maybe too much already? Need to build up and
crank libraries. I flat out give Currency to all the sci civs. EVERYONE got Mono 8-\
The last two settlers in the queue will be allowed to finish.

It's very late at night, and the barb explosions slipped my mind. It's going to
be UGLY! Thank goodness it's only one camp. We buy Mono from Greece for cold cash,
plus an RoP.

1075 BC - Not so brutal after all. With only 1g in my treasury, I was pludered 17 times
for a total of... 1 gold and 2 shields. Yay!

*80* 1025bc - save, a quiet turn.

900 BC - City#14 founded, definitely switching over to infrastructure building
875 BC - Greece finally has Republic it's time to revolt out of Despotism!
I buy from Iro actually, just WM+2gpt. After don't one last whip in some cities...
Four turn anarchy.
850 BC - Oracle completed in Salamanca.

*90* 775bc - save, quiet, just arrived in Despotism, tight on cash.

730BC we finish Feudalism, trade that to Persia for Monarchy, then sell/give those
and Republic all around the east continent.

*100* 570bc - save, quiet.

530 BC - Zulu join India against England.
510 BC - Hiawatha has a transarent bluff for contact with Indians.
410 BC - Tech is moving so fast, but production isn't. It's taking 5-9 turns per
tech and the AI is doing *NOTHING* for me.

*110* 370bc - Bablyon boat off shore, contacts won't be hoarded for long.
The Colossus completes in Nanking. It's first improvement

350 BC, oh sure, just after the end of 10 turn save, Russia comes up with Engr.
We trade Education for that. Persia has Chivalry. Ditto. I then give Engr and Edu to sci's.

310 BC - Right after all get Education, Great Library complete in Athens
290 BC - We note a barb pillage York. Time to get some Riders and take York!
Er.. the means I better hook up the Iron! Next turn Persia and Iro show up
with Printing Press.

250 BC - With York literally undefeded, we declare war reputably, walk up to it,
and next turn capture the city of wines. Near coventry a warr parked on iron
promotes when attacked by an archer.

*120* 170bc save turn. We pass around Astronomy for Printing Press, and give to some.
STILL no one has researched Invention 8-\ We start, due in 5.

(150bc the iron gets hooked up and in 70bc the GA kicks off)



Charis

 

[Charis]

Ok... Where do we compare in tech and income now vs real game -- 170BC --
Actual: 8 full techs and one more 3 away, 26 cities, 128g+7gpt on 193inc.
Shadow: 6 full techs and one more 4 turns away, 17 cities, 105g+5gpt on 256inc. Score 547
Actual: at break even and 100%sci, 90 and 126 beakers. In Shadow, 112 and 187 beakers.
In Shadow, GA very soon, and we hit 4 turn research then.

We're well ahead, with 40-50% better science output! Very likely one or more turns saved.
Total turns ahead: at least 9 turns ahead. That would put launch date of... 1240AD.
Better, but still not 'best'

Problems with this game: Republic still came too late, lack of contacts delayed when we
could start building things other than settlers. Even in 10AD several key cities still
have no temple. Science/improvements of core cities still seems off, as evidenced that
we can't reach 4 turn research.

Let's look at beakers per city! (At 100%)
Actual: 19(Bei),12(Shanghai),21(Canton),3,1,4,1,5,7,9,9,7,1,4,1,1,4,9,1,1,2,1,1,2
Top Shields: 15,13,6,5,5,5,4,2,2 (!!) That's it higher than 1!
Shadow: 27(Bei),30(Sh),24(Ca),17,13,15,13,8,7,7,7,6,4,3,3,3,1
Top Shields: 16,11,10,10,9,7,6,5,3,3,3,3,2
The top *six* sci cities in shadow equal the entire 26 cities of the actual game!
Number of libs: 5 vs 2. Courthouses: 2 vs 0.


Does this suggest anything?

Less cities of higher quality might do even better. Let's try take 3, a second shadow game with even LESS military (hard to imagine given how light our defenses were in Shadow1)

This time - *HALT* expansion soon after turn 70 when we get the FP msg, when we have
9 cities founded and 2 settlers in the field. 1250BC.

1100BC - Enter Middle Ages, gift up sci civs. Again, all get Mono. Engr due in 15.
As usual, it's massive uprising time. We buy embassies.
1000BC - Seeing how USELESS the AI's have been, we get a tad more drastic.
We give away ALL contacts, for free, now.
925BC - No respect. Three civs now have Republic, and "can't do" a deal.
I sell my WM, a few RoP and I can get it from Persia.
We revolt and draw 4 turn anarchy.
825BC - We're a republic.
490BC - Greece has Theology, we have Invention. We trade straight, then give around!

270BC - SCORE!! Babylons come through with Education, which we trade Gunpowder for.
Then give both away to all.
170BC - Gandhi, no, everyone, has Chivalry. Chemistry can get that, then it's given away.

QSC turn 120 done - Results... 11 cities, 218inc, 302g+44gpt. 5 techs away +one more turn.
Shadow2- Sci beakers at 100% 36(Bei),30(Sh),30(Ca),15,16,12,10,10,8,7,6. 9 Libraries.
Top Shields: 19,11,11,10,7,7,5,3,2,2,1. 'Score' 484. BkEven and 100%sci: 108,180.
Result: Less corruption, same commerce, but better NET income.
With less cities, more built-up was the core, so cash and science and shields all better.
We also scored one more AI tech by not only letting West live but giving all contacts.
Turn-wise, 17 ahead of actual game, 8 ahead of first shadow, expected launch: 1160

I play on just a few more turns to see if AI can research any more...
Actually, the very next turn we finish our first University and can hit Astronomy in 4!
10BC - With 2 turns to go to Metallurgy, we're able to swap a few tiles and make it in 1.
150AD - No more AI help, 1 turn from Magnetism, which means we'll enter Industrial
in the yr 250AD. BUT... we've not had our GA yet, and can time it for Steam and
Industrialization, and research those in 4turns. Those were the only ones we missed
in the original game. England is ripe for a Rider or Cav assault, and FP over there.
Orig game: entered Industrial in 420AD, 17 turns behind as projected. But we'll save
two turns on Steam/Industry research, for a 1140AD Launch.

Map of second shadow, expansion stopped at 11 cities:



QSC comparison - I use cracker's spreadsheet to see the QSC difference at the
turn 120 end point in 170 BC:

            Orig   Shadow1  Shadow2
PtsPop      2635      2370     1805
PtsNonpop   4733      4325     4502
PtsInfra    7223      9639    10556
TOTAL PTS  14591     16334    16863

I *just* now noticed that the original military game had its score inflated by
almost *1200* points, due to the combination of Pyramids (captured) plus a huge
number of cities. These gave big points in the 'granary' category. The 1200 points
swamps the lowly 100 pts bonus for a generic 'Great Wonder'. This might be considered
in future QSC competitions. A Pyramid capture at the very end of the game timeframe
is worth a ton, but has really done nothing as of yet to increase real 'power'.

I was surprised there's no QSC pts for income. But that's too easily manipulated.
Shadow2 seems to be in great shape with +43gpt, Shadow1 at +5, and Orig at +5.
But it's sci slider is lower than usual, with banking due next turn. Adjusting the shadow2
slider back to normal values the income is +10, so the *actual* difference is quite low.

Conclusions:
- If you survive, a farmer's gambit is probably more effective than a pure military
strategy (on Monarchy)
- You want just as many cities as you need to do fast research - there is advantage to
having better infrastructure in less cities
- These real advantages are reflected in the QSC scores
- The Pyramids are uber for QSC games
- Granaries have not demonstrated their effectiveness, although I did no direct comparison
of early capital granary vs not - on this map size 11 cities were plenty.
- Having the AI thrive, and GIVING away techs AND Contacts (almost laughable at highest
difficulties) is a winner for Monarch Space race. Combining a farmer's gambit start
with tech/contact gifting shaved 17 turns off the original military launch date.

Charis

 

[hotrod0823]

Thanks for the insight!! You can't imaging how participating in the this game and discussion has helped my Gotm 15 on Monarch. This game and that game are soo similiar it is amazing.

I am interested in seeing how to pursue a fastest conquest or domination victory, maybe we shall see that goal in a QSC -SG2.

Hotrod

 

[Charis]

> Thanks for the insight!! You can't imaging how participating in
> the this game and discussion has helped my Gotm 15 on
> Monarch. This game and that game are soo similiar it is amazing.



I know what you mean, I learned a *TON* in this game with the discussion and seeing the other strats in detail. And I had the same thoughts as you when I looked at GOTM 15! One could definitely take what was learned hear and rock in that game! (That's not a spoiler 'cuz I haven't been far enough to spoil yet ;P ) In fact I'm looking forward to seeing the gotm-15 qsc results.

> I am interested in seeing how to pursue a fastest conquest or
> domination victory, maybe we shall see that goal in a QSC -SG2.

This too is a question which jumps up and BEGS to be answered - we would learn alot about rapid conquest/dom victories from such an event. (Diplo win is similar to space race, beeline to Fission, with the slight difference that you can't do what Genghis Charis did ) The other QSC I definitely want to see is Space Race but on Emperor (looks with big puppy eyes at cracker!). There will be some obvious and subtle differences there, but applying the same ideas learned here will NOT be 'optimal'.

Charis