another hof spacerace start

[Snaaty]

here it is:



seems an ok start. 2 gold, some forests, a plainshill, a looooong river, some floodplains and one wet corn... ...we can also see cows and jungle-diamons... ...like i said, an ok start

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ai leaders are:
mansa, darius, eli, lincoln, gandhi, isa, peter (7 ai)

map:
small big and small map, tropical climat, tiny islands not mixed in, large main landmass (pangea like map with lots of jungle and a ton of tiny islands)

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everybody feel free to pick up the save and to play along. but remember to put everything game related into spoilers.

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i played alread up to 1000 BC in 3 turnset with the following stoping points (if you wish to compare your game to my game). writeups will follow whenever i have a bit of time...

2600 BC
1840 BC
1080 BC (ok so almost 1000 BC it is)

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have fun

 

[Zx Zero Zx]

It must be the kewl kid klub thing to do to post HoF space starts now days! Is it deity or immortal?

 

[Manco Capac]

Since arabia space game, looks like space games are the new fad over here.
Hey, wait a minute, it compromises my second instalment. jk

 

[soundjata]

No one's as cool a you, Z^3

 

[GKey]

BRB, studying deutsche to read Snaaty's screenies.

 

[Snaaty]

@ zzz: yes, you should try it out too (it´s immortal because i innitally wanted to join the gauntled game)
@ tachy: you seem to have a talent to motivate people
@ gkey: switched the game to english for the screens

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ok, here comes the first installment, up to 2600BC:

Spoiler :

i obviously settled on the plains hill. and since it is a super hof map packed with ai´s (7 on a small map), i dont bother building a worker. i go for max. production instead and spam 4 warriors to recuit some workers for me...

...which obviously worked quite well, since we have now at 2600BC 7 workers. we also have a settler in capital waiting to go for the next city, but i havent decided yet where to settle the next city (on off the coast for more overlap with capital or costal for a better longterm city, see next screens...)

at this point, i decided to stop workerstealing, because not only someone has to pay for them, i also want the ai to develop land and cities for me, and most important, you also get neg. diplo hits with most ai´s in the game when doing so (nooooo, each time i steal a worker from isa or lincoln, i get a -1 with darius, mansa and eli, and a -2 with gandhi... ...only peter is cool, nobody likes him and i dont get any diplo hit... ...ugh, if i had known this in advance, i wouldnt have spoilt relations with most ai already)

relations 2600bc:

most amazing is gandhi, who hats me more then isa and lincoln, although i never have stolen a worker from him

only positive thing is that eli and dari are only at -1 since the didnt know me or my workersteal target in the beginning, but mansa is already at -2 so i simply cant permit myself a single workersteal more (well, i could continue stealing from peter, but i suspect his capital beeing costal and i hope he builds me the glh if i let him live in peace a bit, since he has among the highest prios for that wonder)

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well, at least development of capital and surroundings works quite well if you have basically an unlimited ammount of workers available.

the capital:


the surroundings:

yes, you see right, no bronze, no phants... ...at least we have horses. but we have tons of callendar thingies, so i´m thinking about a callendar beeline and going math directly after writing... ...hm, then i would have to save some forests for beefed chops... ...we will see...

and peter the stupid has stolen the city site where we wanted to settle our first city, so we had to start to improvise already (i wanted to settle the corn/cow spot with first settler, then had to redirect him to pigs... ...this obviously is the price for packing in max. ais)

the ais:


teching for this first set was:
bronze-wheel-ah-pottery-writing

if that is ok for you, the next save i will provide will be the 1000 BC save, to save some db space. if you want some inbetween saves, just ask...

 

[Doshin]

This is probably old news to you, but...

Gandhi gives a -2 penalty when you declare war against another AI with whom he is Pleased. So if he likes Isabella and Lincoln, and you declare on both, they have -3 "you declared war on us!" relations, while Gandhi goes to -4 ("you declared war on our friend!").

 

[Snaaty]

This is probably old news to you, but...

Gandhi gives a -2 penalty when you declare war against another AI with whom he is Pleased. So if he likes Isabella and Lincoln, and you declare on both, they have -3 "you declared war on us!" relations, while Gandhi goes to -4 ("you declared war on our friend!").

no, didnt know about that. and yes, i´m happy for any bit of advice i can get, since i never have tried a fast spaceship game, nor a game with exessive early warring (except the aw ones, but these dont really help in diplo issues).

up to 1 ad, i´m having some sort of a plan (go berserk, kill all, get 20 cities and such), but from then on i´m a bit lost i guess. i never have tried excessive corporation spam so far also, have no idea of ideal tech and build order for the spaceship, so yes, advice, give me

 

[Kaitzilla]

Wow, certainly a hof start! Shame no elephants.


Starting in the center of 6AI on a river with so many stolen workers is just what is needed for a fast finish date.

Spoiler :

Advice advice hmm. Watch out for Peter. He is pretty unreasonable on Immortal, but a good trading partner if harnessed properly.

Isabella is the one you should keep an eye on for stealing your Oracle. Her high religious flavor makes her likely to tech priesthood sooner than any other AI. 2600AD Monotheism already dang.


On big and small, bend every effort towards getting Sushi as fast as possible. B+S is a sushi kind of map.


Getting space parts is pretty straightforward. Go Genetics first, then Rocketry and building the space program, then tech towards fusion, grab satellites and composites, and finish with Ecology. The engines that Fusion unlocks are the hardest parts to build quickly.


I'm not sure if Liberalism for Astro is a good idea or it better to bulb it or wait for an AI to tech it. Elizabeth will be pretty backwards being alone on the Small part of the map.

 

[Snaaty]

@ kaitzilla:

thanks for the quick response and the tips

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concerning eli:

Spoiler :

she is also on our continent, just havent found here starting area yet, but ran into a scout of hers (and already got a neg. diplo hit with her also off course). so i have already met (which is great) and pissed off (which i not so great) all ais...

 

[Snaaty]

another 3 quick questions that came to my mind, concerning corporations:

1. what would be a decent date to get them (pre 1000 AD i imagine)?
2. how do you build your executives? coldwhipping them for 5 pop (will be difficult to keep up for all cities because at a certain point you simply would run out of citizens, spreading 2 corporations) or building them for 2 turns each executive (assuming you have 3 cities making 50hammers+ at that point
->for fast corporations and with sushi first you have to calculate without the iw i guess
3. how fast should you get the second corporation after the first one? less then 10 turns or more?

 

[soundjata]

Executives: pre-whip them (whip a building and keep the overflow by building wealth) and chop'em.

Also, you want to start the spread from your core cities, and especially the ironworks city and cascade outwards.
City 1 spread corporation to city 2 > city 2 to city 3 etc...

 

[kossin]

1. As fast as possible. If you can manage a huge empire and still get Corporations pre-1000AD, you'd be in fantastic shape. Maybe GM-trade missions can help.

2. I wouldn't recommend 0-H whips, simply as there are better options available as soundjata said.

3. As fast as possible also It's just a function of your research capacity vs production; balance them and race to space.

 

[GKey]

I got Mining prior to Sushi and it helped crank Sushi executives in 1 turn without too much micro. But yes Sushi benefits you more then Mining especially on big&small (I actually finished spreading Sushi prior to Mining with great help of Mining been in main production cities).

But all this for later. How you intend to get them ASAP? Axes/HAs/Cats?

And even before that from turn 1: max production in capital and first stolen worker improve corn (so you catch up in growth) or slow production in capital growing on flood plains and first stolen worker builds mine on gold first so you catch up in production working floodplains and gold mine. And may be to mix in some turns working silk.

Rules of thumb like "you should always improve wet corn first" is not so obvious here. Unimproved flood plains are decent tiles to grow on.

That already can make quite a big difference.

 

[Snaaty]

@ gkey:

concerning the start and your questions on how to get the warriors out:

i didnt really think that much about it. just went max. hammers for the first 2 warriors, then changed on max. food for the last 2.... ...now that you mentioned silk that gets available after the first borderpop... ...i think i simply did forget about it and missed the free commerce for a few turns (while building the first 2 warriors i never changed mikro...)

and i used the rule of thumb you mentioned:
wet corn first, then gold, then chopping a bit, then cottages

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@ kossin and soundjata:

great tips. the ov whipping of execs will really help a lot. but maybe mining first still is best to get them all out in 1 turn? if i can make sure to get sushi only a few turns after, say in less then 10 turns?

 

[Snaaty]

ok, here comes the next update, up to 1840bc:

Spoiler :

as you can see in the overview, i will finish settling all i can around 1800bc, with 5 cities plugged down, one settler on the way and the last settler finishing next turn. that will leave me with 7 cities in total:


and we have not only bronze (which we will pick up with a crappy helper city) we will also have iron (and cows) if i finally manage to get a borderpop in city 3 (plan was to get it next turn via chopping the oracle this turn, but plans change, as you can read later... ...so we will have to live without cows and iron for a bit more...

so far, only 3 cities are somewhat usefull (and you can see that i really opted for plugging down city 3 one off from the coast for more overlap with the capital). the other 4 cites are totally crappy dontwantobethere juglecamps so far.

i was thinking along the line of: what i dont have to capture is great and will block the space for a decent city later (once i have cleared off the jungle and researched callendar). but due to math beefed chopps and no other usefull stuff to build (no metal) all the wood went into settlers so far and i had to send them somewhere...

but quite obviously callendar MUST be the next tech, even if it delays our warfare-preps even more (after choosing not to pick construction from oracle). all the bananas and the callender goodies need to be put to use, and seeing 4 jungle cities stagnate at pop 1 or 2 makes my eyes bleed...

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well, at least thanks to my 7 workers and an incredible early alpha trade, some riverside callender goodies are already getting farmed over (sugar), and more jungle is getting chopped or prechopped right now. the forests left near city 3 are for a 1 turn oracle, innitially i wanted to pick construction, but....



why pick construction if i can get CS in 6 turns? (right now it is shown as 7 turns, but working a few more commerce plots will drop it on 6 turns). so the oracle will get chopped in 5 turns, meaning 1640bc.

after realizing how incredible fast early research will be in this game (and how strong the capital will be), i also decided to breed a super-early GS in city 2 (will be ready in 11 turns) and violate my own rule NOT to build an academy in a city-spamming game...

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great to have eli in the game btw, beelining alpa an getting it 2000bc. i only had to put 2 turns of research into alpha to trade it for math (i went strait for math after writing for better chopping), then i was able to backfill some smaller stuff (hunting, fishing, sailing, medi, poly, masonry) and finally mansa got iw (thanks to mansa i also was able to trade for stuff i normally wouldnt have been able to trade for that early, like masonry+poly)

while techtrading for a few turns, i turned research off to get some money into the bank. then i played another few turns more (3 i think) researching priesthood, prechopping for the oracle and getting all settler done asap. somewhere inbetween i must have misclicked and somehow managed to put a turn of full research into mc... ...well, with everything going so well, i guess i can live with that (maybe i will even research mc after callendar, delaying warring a bit more)

in 1840ad everything was ready to chop the oracle in one turn, but after changing my mind from construction to CS it now will get delayed for 5 turns...

the techscreen:


eli got priesthood last turn, no other ai has priesthood so far. without alpha and the insight on techs it offers, i dont think i would have gambled on oracling CS. and i dont think that eli will get the oracle built in 6 turns, so CS should be ours

you can also see in this screen that i almost exclusively traded with mansa (most ais hate me).

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our ex-workerstealers now working as scouts also have found the location of eli, the last ai:

 

[Snaaty]

last update, up to 1080BC (here is where i stand in the game right now):

Spoiler :

well, i guess i will be a bit late for the war. aparently i have fallen into the "only 1 economy tech more" trap

so here we go again, the overview 1080BC:


the jungle is getting pushed back more and more. our sad junglecamps are becoming decent places slowly. 1080BC i stopped after having researched callendar and mc. i was struggling quite a bit with the decision to research mc or not, but after having already dumped one turn of research into it by accident during the last turnset (some 60 beakers if memory serves me) it was only 4 turns more (see what i mean, only 4 turns here, some more turns there) so i decided to go mc before the warfare techs. half price forges will help a lot getting the army out faster at least. i ov whipped all cities the turn before mc was in (grans are already up in all cities), so the forges should be all up in 2-3 turns.

our capital:


100 beakers at 1000 BC... ...something you dont see under normal conditions...

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the tech-situation:

mansa is going totally nuts. phil pre 1000BC. go mansa, go, go go. dari is the biggest ai, but a bit backwards. i guess i will gift him techs on a reg. basis to keep him usefull for later. eli is doing ok, but not great. she will also recieve here share of techs. so sides are choosen, mansa, dari + eli will live, the rest will die better sooner then later.

taking about the rest... ...well, have i already mentioned that they hate me? with the exception of gandhi, they are all a bunch of loosers. and gandhi having built already his shrine and spamming missionaries all over (+ he has phants) will be my first target anyways, so no worries there also.

seeing that dari has gold up for trading reminds me of how usefull currency is for selling techs for cash. so i´m already debating if i should delay warring a bit more and research currency, it´s only 3 turns and would speed up reseach for the rest a bit (see what i ment, it´s already happening again... ...only SOME turns more)

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so far, the mighty chinese army consists of a bunch of warriors and one band of axmen. there should be cats and stuff already running all over in great numbers, but no, nothing. finishing 3-4 ai´s up to 1 ad and getting to 20 cities seems to be harder then expected. at least the economy is in great shape...

the demo:


the biggest, the best, better then the rest, dundundundun... ...ah, this looks good, and once the forges are up, it will become even better

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but no, there is more, i have saved the best for last... ...better then the demo screen... ...yes, much better... ...guess what my best buddy ai dari was willing to give me for my horses... ...i couldnt believe it when they pooped up in the trading screen... ..elephants, elephants, elephants, we will have elephants for our war

dari now has officially qualified himself to live to see the end of this game (or not, we will see)

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all in all, im very happy with this game so far. teching is great and we even will be able to go warring with elepults. the plan to start warring around 1000BC with cats+X went down the drain, but maybe we can start warring around 800-700BC with elepults. but we will have to fully commit to the warring soon to meet the above mentioned goals (3-4 ais dead or almost dead 1 AD and having 20+ cities). the whip, the mighty whip will have to save the day (again)

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save is attached

 

[kossin]

Wow, those 7 workers did an amazing job
Crazy empire development for that early!

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

In my opinion, bee-lining Medicine for Sid's Sushi first is usually better than bee-lining Railroad for Mining Inc. Sid's Sushi is especially good on a Big and Small map; Mining Inc should never be first on a B&S map. Executives can be whipped very effectively in cities with Sid's Sushi. May want to consider Communism before Biology -> Medicine, so The Kremlin can be built and provide far more efficient whipping.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[GKey]

Phants are not that hot since you can get maces in 6 turns IMO.

Don't understand you dot map (again )

Spoiler :

I thought PH 1W of north gold and riverside sugar 3E of Capital are obvious candidates, aren't they?