A Tale of Two Victory Conditions

[Buttercup]

I was going to put these in the 'Interesting Screenshots' thread but I think they make for a fascinating thread all by themselves.

This is a wonderfully easy map. Seriously, I couldn't believe how awesome the start location was. Anyway, I had no knowledge of the map prior to my initial Domination win and it was my third time on the map for my Space Race win (the second time was a lame Space Race win at 1980, really draggy and disappointing). I used no reloads for any of the games and both games only took a weekend's worth of time to complete, I think 20 hours for the Domination and 14 hours for the Space Race.

So here is the bizarreness:





View attachment GreekDom3.SAV

Victory in 1585, 4200 points, Magnificent





View attachment GreekSpace3.SAV

OMG! Victory in 1585, 3200 points, Wise

When I tried to go for a 'speedy' Space win, trying to apply a couple of methods learned on this site, I was utterly shocked that it produced the exact same completion date as the Domination win. It's like something out of The X-Files or The Twilight Zone (depending on your age, lol).

Both were me trying to use tips from the site to 'improve' my game and I have to say I liked these 'improvements'. Being as the map is so easy I didn't require sneaky tricks but the things that really helped were:

For the Domination win:

Taking out the first AI civ quite slowly and using a stack of combined forces (including 4/5 Catapults) to slowly move one square at a time, stopping to regain health after each Town fell. Always using an elite as the main attacker to help generate an Army as soon as possible. Once early Armies are up and running the slow stacks and bombard Units can be dispensed with and 'normal' horse-based attacking can resume.

For the Space win:

Really pack in the Towns, make sure every square inch of land and sea can be worked to its maximum. Prioritise any invasions to acquiring luxuries and resources and keep the Units costs as dedicated to Workers as possible. Keep production to Settlers, Workers and Spearmen for as long as practically possible or until all the 'nice' land is taken. Don't build any religious buildings, military buildings (except barracks in the Capital maybe) or Courthouses unless absolutely necessary and prioritise Libraries, Marketplaces and Universities.


I think this is a wonderful map for all types of players and offer it as an ideal feel-good game for any player, noob to pro.

Noobs will like the easy access to resources and the easy start location and so should allow ample opportunity for multiple errors and experimentation with all win scenarios.

Average to good players, such as myself, will like the opportunity the map gives to try out new methods with low risks and the chance to break some personal bests.

Pro players should like this map as it offers an excellent position to go for some record breaking scenarios.

The map is:

View attachment GreekStart.SAV

and is:

Regent
Huge Pangea
70% Water
Restless Barbarians
Arid
Temperate
3 Billion Years
AI Aggression Normal
16 civs
You playing as the Greeks, Scientific, Commercial.


Also, for those that are experts on the 4-turns per Tech method of play, I was surprised how hard this was. I was in a Republic Government at 1175BC and then took 234 turns to do all the techs (I calculated 38 required after some considerations such as trading for Feudalism, the 5 'free' techs of Scientific Method and being a Scientific civ but then adding Economics and Military Tradition etc), that's an average of 6.15 turns per tech and a theoretical 'loss' of 82 turns. I found Literacy to Economics to be about 8/9 turns per tech and Steel to Superconductors about 4/5/6 turns per tech with most in-between at the magic 4 turns per tech. I can imagine that the later problem was due to having just slightly too few Cities, but how on earth do you get those early techs at 4 per turn?

Also, here's the really annoying part of civ3 discovered in this game that even pros might not know:

I really hate building Factories. If I don't have to then I just wont. However, to make sure I completed all the Space Components one turn after discovering the last tech needed I endeavoured to put 1 Factory in my Capital city. This was just at the start of the Modern Age. Prior to this I had zero pollution. All Cities were size 12 with no Hospitals and no other production enhancements. And here's the really annoying thing, the moment I completed the Factory in the Capital then every single other big City stated producing Pollution. This is an in-built game-error of the most horrid kind and should have been picked up at the Beta-testing phase...

 

[Spoonwood]

The start doesn't seem powerful enough (where lie the cow/cows for the capital) for an HoF game at Regent. Not that it's bad, but it doesn't seem like it would set any records.

To get to 4-turn research (I'm ignoring the possibility of an early SGL) you basically need to have a fully roaded core with libraries, universities, marketplaces and luxuries. Semi-corrupt areas can use courthouses and even police stations if the AI gets you Communism also. You also will want to make sure you have the Forbidden Palace up early. Selling techs for gpt once the AIs have gpt (especially on higher levels) can help also. Cope's, Newton's, SETI, and the Internet can also help.

If you pick up Sanitation, irrigating putting in hospitals and irrigating all of your tiles can help produce more scientists (researching most optionals doesn't generally lead to earlier launches, though Sanitation might help if you can't pick up more territory via conquering, or the AI researches it for you). In ares with a significant amount of corruption (somewhere over 50% before a courthouse), putting up specialist farms can help. Basically you irrigate all tiles, and then use 3 or 4 scientists in your towns once it grows to size 5 or 6 if no aqueduct, or somewhere in the 7-12 range if you have an aqueduct. To get these you often need to conquer territory and put out a slew of settlers at ICS spacing (after a while specialist farms can produce enough settlers that you don't need them from anywhere else). You can find plenty of specialist farms in this save:

 

[Buttercup]

Because the start position is on a Bonus Grassland tile then I always move 1 square onto a Blank Grassland tile as my first turn. I move one place north and keep the double cows for my second city but it would be possible to move your Settler one tile south and have your Capital next to two cows. Neither of the cows are near rivers though (just about the only tiles that aren't!

I did indeed get an early Scientific Great Leader in the Space Race example, for discovering Writing, my first tech. I used this to build Pyramids rather than increase Scientific output, is using Scientific Great Leaders for increased Science output better than using them for useful Great Wonders in Space Race games?

The AI is particularly slow in this game, even during the slow and non-violent 1980 Space win the most they could muster was ordering me to give them Motorised Transport at the cusp of victory. At the 1585 stage the best of them are just beginning to produce Cavalry and ordering me to give them Magnetism. At the point where I was learning Economics I was quite lucky in that that Russia, being Scientific, got Feudalism as their free tech as most of the others hadn't even begun the Middle Ages by that point so trading anything beyond that point is... unlikely. I think I was accepting trades of Nationalism for Printing Press and the like just to boost my end-game techs learned points.

I put Cope's, Newtons and Seti all in my Capital as per normal and saved a Scientific Great Leader for the Internet. I have to say that I was surprised in all my play-throughs at how few Scientific Great Leaders I got, considering every single tech I learned was a unique tech. I got maybe one per Age, if that, and I can't even remember what I used the middle one/s for.

Thanks for the save, I've downloaded it and shall browse it later on so I apologise in advance if I do a double post on your post

 

[vmxa]

The SGL boost science does not work. Been broken, since day one.

 

[Spoonwood]

You only get points for future techs. Also, you gain so few points from future techs it hardly affects your score at all.