Bartleby's HoF Thread

Unfortunately, because the Byzantines had a monopoly on Steam Power I had to pay full price; the only way I could get my gold back was by using Nationalism. If you don't get the gold back during the Big Picture, you might only recover a fraction of it afterwards.
 
Bartleby said:
I bought Nationalism from Xerxes for Medicine, Steam Power, Republic and Monarchy.
Click to expand...
Bartleby said:
Unfortunately, because the Byzantines had a monopoly on Steam Power I had to pay full price; the only way I could get my gold back was by using Nationalism. If you don't get the gold back during the Big Picture, you might only recover a fraction of it afterwards.
Click to expand...
This was a pretty good price for Nationalism, it's almost always the case that it costs a lot of gold. You lucked out with Xerxes being short Republic and Monarchy.

It's also the case that you can get a lot of money back from Electricity or Industrialization or Sanitation if you get those techs. Even Ironclads produces a lot of money and on Pangaea it's worthless to everyone.
 
Don't forget this is only Warlord level, there isn't that much gold besides mine. I did sell Ironclads to the Byzantines a couple of turns later, for about 50 gold and 20 gpt, nobody else had anything to offer.
 
I'm now at 350 AD.
During the Golden Age I researched the last turn of Electricity, and then did 4-turn research on Replaceable Parts, Industrialization, Scientific Method, Atomic Theory, and half of Electronics. Fortunately when the GA ended I was still able to finish Electronics at the 4-turn pace. I've done Corporation and half of Steel, and I'm fairly sure I can do the rest of the Industrial Age at the same pace, so I'm looking at 570 AD Big Picture (I'm already crossing my fingers).
Having just built the Hoover Dam, my second city is at 50 spt so my Palace prebuild for the Internet needs to start in two turns. The capital will be able to build ToE in eight turns, so that will start in 490 AD.
 
I'm even hoping I can get pre-900 AD, it's possible *if* I can trade for enough first-tier techs and can get decent research afterwards.

Based on my current research capacity, which should improve at least a bit before 570 AD (and after, assuming I don't screw up the Internet prebuild and jump the capital to Sumer), the absolute worst case scenario would be if everyone gets Ecology when I gift them up and then I get Recycling, then I'd finish in 1050 AD. That wouldn't meet the goal of pre-1000 AD that I set myself at the start, but it would still be number 3 on the table and bump up my stats (as things stand).
 
Bartleby said:
I'm even hoping I can get pre-900 AD, it's possible *if* I can trade for enough first-tier techs and can get decent research afterwards.

Based on my current research capacity, which should improve at least a bit before 570 AD (and after, assuming I don't screw up the Internet prebuild and jump the capital to Sumer), the absolute worst case scenario would be if everyone gets Ecology when I gift them up and then I get Recycling, then I'd finish in 1050 AD. That wouldn't meet the goal of pre-1000 AD that I set myself at the start, but it would still be number 3 on the table and bump up my stats (as things stand).
Click to expand...
If you get all 4 first tier techs from the AI and get Miniaturization as your free tech + ToE finishing, I'd probably research Nuclear Power since it's smaller and use ToE on The Laser and Robotics and "finish" the bottom the of the tree. You'd then need to research Synthetic Fibers, Space Flight, Superconductor and Satellites. I guess it's theoretically possible with 4 turn research to do the Modern Age in 20 turns if everything breaks perfectly for you. That is a 770 finish assuming you can get the Apollo Program built ASAP and have enough capacity for all of the SS modules. It's hard to do 4 turn research at the start of the Modern Age unless you are doing 4 turn research at like 60% science at the end of the Industrial Age since the Modern Age techs are so expensive.

I doubt at Warlord you will get any research help from the AI. Every tech missing from the starting 5 is obviously 4 additional turns at minimum. 890 AD finish is a 32 turns Modern Age, which would be a very strong performance at Warlord.

I thought I did pretty well to do all the Modern Age techs in 37 turns without too much luck on the starting techs but AI research on 1 of the Modern Age techs.

I'm still a little gobsmacked at you finishing Astronomy @1025 BC and researching Banking in 5 turns!
 
Last edited:
Thanks, but Banking actually took 6 turns!

I'll be completing ToE immediately after the big picture, so it wouldn't be possible to reach Robotics. If I were to get all the first-tier techs and Mini for free then I'd take Space Flight and Nuclear Power; if I got something else free then I'd take Mini and Space. If I end up without Computers it'll have to be Comp & Mini.

It's all "if" at this stage.
 
At 500 AD I'm revising the worst case scenario to 1000 AD, that's if I have to research 9 techs, 7 at 5-turns and 2 at 4-turns. I don't know how much of a boost the Internet will be, but if I was able to do all the techs at 4-turns it would be 930 AD. I can take 40 years off the date for each additional first-tier tech I can trade for, and for my free tech if it isn't recycling.

I've started to get pollution, and it seems to strongly favour my prebuild cities. I'm fairly sure the Palace prebuild is safe unless it gets hit like every other turn. The ToE build was not safe, a single turn of pollution on a hill or mountain would mean a delay that could not be made up. So I decided to start a Universal Suffrage prebuild a couple of turns early, and I'll switch it when I get to Flight in 1 turn.

While Flight researches I plan to build a handful of Tanks, and then if I need to use large gpt payments during the big picture I'll just declare war to get my money back.

The Persians would be my preferred target for such dastardliness, they're the main fly in my ointment:

map.jpg


edit to add: if I don't have to declare war to recover my gpt, I probably won't bother.
 
Last edited:
Do you have Civ Assist 2 or some other utility to tell you research costs? If you are able to do Motorized Transportation in 4 turns @ 50% science (per screenshot), I would have to think you'd have a good shot at 4 turn science in the Modern Age even without the Internet (but it would help of course). The hard part is distracting your core cities for even a turn to build a rushed Research Lab if you have to take them off of a SS Module pre-build.

If I recall correctly, average Modern Age techs are *roughly* 80% more expensive than the most expensive Industrial Age techs (but I know Robotics is more like 1.25X more expensive than Flight).
 
I have been looking at the tech costs using CAII. I think I'd be able to research all the first-tier techs apart from Fission in 4 turns with my current research capacity, Fission would currently take 5 but I'm optimistic that the Internet would bring that down to 4 if it comes to that. Nuclear Power, Synthetic Fibers, and the Laser cost the same as Fission, and Satellites is relatively cheap. Space Flight, Superconducor, and Robotics might still need 5 turns.

Currently I can get a bit more than 1000 beakers at 100% on the science slider (at about -60 gpt) and I have 106 specialists for up to 318 extra beakers. Also I am still growing more specialists, and can join back workers as well, if necessary.
 
I finished Motorized Transportation and then researched Flight in 4 turns at 60%, using a lot of scientists.

Switched Universal Suffrage to Theory of Evolution, due in 1 turn (wasted 72 shields, the exact production of the capital). The palace prebuild was due in 1 turn.

Gifted everybody; Greece and the Ottomans got Computers, Korea and Persia got Ecology, and the Byzantines once again got a monopoly tech, Fission.
So no Rocketry, unless it's my free tech...

I bought Ecology from Korea for Nationalism and 4865 gold
I bought Computers from Greece for Ecology and Ironclads
I bought Fission from Byzantium for Computers, Ecology, 3654 gold and 121 gold per turn.

I sold Computers to Korea for 4865 gold

I set research to Miniaturization and left the big picture; ToE finished and I went back to the big picture, Nuclear Power was the free tech. I swapped Sumer to the Internet and took Synthetic Fibers as the second ToE tech, and set research to Rocketry, due in 4 turns (I think at 70% with most specialists assigned as scientists). Also while I was back in the big picture I sold Miniaturization to the Byzantines for 3654 gold and 124 per turn -- I got all my gold back plus a little extra.

This is where the drama begins...I find out I have no Uranium in my territory!
Korea has multiple sources, so unfortunately for Wang, the small stack of Tanks that I had planned not to use went into service. In a couple of turn I've taken all but one of their towns, I haven't yet decided whether to leave them in the game or not. The borders of all my previously zero culture towns have just popped so I decided to stop for this evening and start off tomorrow by re-assigning all the specialists.

When I started research on Rocketry, I temporarily set the slider to 100%, and the Science Advisor said that Genetics would take 4 turns so Robotics should be the same. Unless I mess up the SS component builds I'm predicting a Launch date of 810 AD. I'm pretty pleased with that I have to say.:)
 
Bartleby said:
When I started research on Rocketry, I temporarily set the slider to 100%, and the Science Advisor said that Genetics would take 4 turns so Robotics should be the same. Unless I mess up the SS component builds I'm predicting a Launch date of 810 AD. I'm pretty pleased with that I have to say.:)
Click to expand...
Was it 570 AD for the change of ages? That's a 24 turn Modern Age, which is basically only 4 turns off of optimal (as calculated above) if you have no AI research help. Congrats! Another #1 spot - on a Small map nonetheless!
 
Thanks. Yes, I finished Flight on schedule in 570 AD; six "free" techs, and should get the other six techs in four turns each. It might actually have been tough to get all of the first-tier techs if they were all available because that would mean there were three monopoly techs to try to trade for.
 
You are really, really an excellent player Bartleby. Two #1s over the course of a couple of months on full and competitive tables. Well done. I really wish there was a feature in Civ 3 that allowed me to see a recording of everything you did before 1000 BC, which as far as I can tell, was nearly flawless, and I'd love to learn from it.
 
Thanks BlackBetsy, you're too kind. To be honest, before 1000 BC I was very lucky. Got a settler from the first hut and then a good run of popped techs, and the SGL on the way to the slingshot. I was also lucky that I popped some early barbs next to my nearest neighbour the Ottomans, that probably stopped them from stealing some of my rightful territory.

I found it helpful as well to use CRpViewer and CivAssist to analyse the intermediate saves of the existing number 1 and 2 games by Sanabas and Spoonwood.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

B
Poll on Greatest HOF Game Ever - Nominations
2
Replies
21
Views
750
superslug
superslug
superslug
August 2024 HOF III Update
Replies
3
Views
193
Calis
Calis
superslug
  • Locked
  • Poll
Should the Flintlock Mod Be HOF III Legal?
Replies
19
Views
791
superslug
superslug
superslug
August 1, 2024 HOF III Update
Replies
0
Views
263
superslug
superslug
B
HOF Submission Error
Replies
6
Views
493
superslug
superslug
Top Bottom