BlackBetsy
King
- Joined
- Feb 15, 2005
- Messages
- 745
[Edited Subject - I think having a thread for every one of my attempts is probably bad form and I like what Spoonwood did, so I am going to try to consolidate in one place]
20K HOF ATTEMPT
I realized that I lost my "Machiavellian" status on the Civ III HOF status because my one 20k submission (1812 Small Demigod) got pushed off the board by 22 turns. So looking at the HOF for 20k it looks like the most achievable on a difficulty level I can reasonably handle at this stage is Standard / Monarch, where the current #10 date is 1745 AD. I figured I could give that a run.
Recently I did a 20k cultural victory for fun just to build all the wonders, so I wasn't totally out of practice. I read up on some 20k strategy and tried out an archipelago map with the Babylonians for Sci/Rel and the nature of the map left me with very little opportunity for early expansion to generate the tech I would need, especially with my opponents doing the dumb island-based zero tech massive warrior/spearman armies.
So I decided to go continental / warm / 5 billion for good food production and instead of the Babylonians, I decided to try Arabia for (1) expansionist - wanted to pop an early settler or city to be my settler factory; (2) religious to start a temple right away and get one built to double its culture in as few turns as possible.
I got a dream set up with two forests (one on a river), five bonus grasslands, and a ridge of hills with fresh water to start (not on the ocean). On Turn 2 I popped a barb hut and got a city that would barely overlap with my capital AND had two grassland cows. A perfect 4 turn settler factory. After one scout in the capital, it was straight to a temple. A quick early meeting with my neighbors the Dutch and the Zulu got me Masonry and Alphabet and I was off to the races for Writing / Philosophy. After the temple was built in Mecca in 3400, I started on the Pyramids while city #2 chopped a granary while growing rapidly to size 4 and started spitting out settlers. I spread out rapidly across the large sub-continent I was placed on, with a 2-tile choke point to the Zulu. The starting position gave me reasonable access to 2 luxes and a long road slog to a 3rd. With a rapidly growing and producing Mecca, the Pyramids were built in 1425 BC - I felt pretty good about getting them done that fast.
I had a short gap before I got Literature, and agonized over slaving Mecca down for the Library. I completed it in 1125 after I built Barracks and then realized that I had no pressure on the Great Library and that the Mausoleum of Mausallos would keep the Meccans happy as the population grew to 12. I completed Maus 800 BC and then hit the Great Library in 390 BC. I then went for Temple of Artemis for my last Ancient Age Great Wonder, but it got hit in a wonder cascade and I wound up with the Great Wall in 150 BC. I had flipped to Monarchy with 2 turn anarchy right after I built the Great Wall. Since I was teching and the pace of the AI was SUPER slow at this point, I wasn't feeling great about cash rushing (via worker) a Colosseum in 90 BC since it put me down to about 150 gold and then had to build the Cathedral in 70 AD. I had to wait a few turns and built some catapults to crush the Zulus while Feudalism finished (not being Scientific hurt me here - I had no pre-builds to span the time), and started Sun Tzu as a pre-build for Sistine. I hit Sistine in 470 AD. I started another pre-build with Leonardo's for Invention with JS Bach's in mind but then decided to grab Knights Templar in 590 AD for the free units.
By this time, I hit a Golden Age with my Ansar Warriors and was in a war to rid my continent of the Dutch and hopefully create an Army from the elites I built when I crushed the Zulus. Then I built a University in 670 from scratch after being cash poor from pushing techs and doing a cash tech buy. I got Copernicus in 810, and built Heroic Epic with my second MGL in 820. I thought I had JS Bach's easy since my competitor was Chichen Itza with a lot of irrigated grasslands around it. The joke was on me - I missed it by 5 turns and had to pivot to Adam Smith's, which I got in 990. I traded my way to Free Artistry and got Shakespeare's Theater in 1160 AD.
At this point, I was fighting off the Maya and Dutch on my East and actually losing ground to the Maya with some of the most horrendous RNG I've ever seen. Healthy veteran Ansar Warriors were losing on offense to unfortified damaged Mayan Knights on grassland at an alarming rate and the Mayan knights seems to have no trouble at all beating Pikes fortified behind city walls. Tired from the wars, I finally thought about whether I was doing well enough from culture to hit my goal of pre-1745.
Ugh, I was generating only 81 culture per turn at this point and had 6971 culture total. I was 160 turns away and wouldn't finish better than the mid 1800s even with some additional high shield / low culture Wonders. What a bummer. I really thought I was going strong and only missed out on JS Bach of the wonders I really wanted.
I am really trying to figure out what my mistakes were. I could have prioritized Music Theory and gotten JS Bachs but I might have lost Copernicus. After being dead in the Ancient Era, it felt like the AI were zooming in the Middle Ages and were trading amongst themselves more productively. I probably should have put Great Library ahead of Museum of Mausallos and gotten the higher culture earlier. Obviously making myself cash-poor through teching made me unable to rush the Colosseum and University when I should have. I wasn't able to get the AI to pay me very much for tech since they always seemed broke - I picked up a few 15-20 gpt a few times but that's it. Maybe could I have gotten into the late 1700's for a finish?
Not sure where to go on my next attempt. I love building in the cap for the lack of corruption and early culture/temple. Maybe I give that up in favor of City 2. I really like Expansionist Civs and Religious for the early Temple and the ability to pop the 2nd settler / town and tech trade early with fast scouts. Maybe Pangaea is better so I can hit more civs early - my first contact with the other contact was very late. Great Library and 6 culture per turn should have been built before Maus. I could have gotten Mecca up to 12 population faster. I could have been better with commerce in outlying cities to tech faster, and I could have gone Republic for more commerce and faster tech and more gold.
In the end, I feel like you need at least one SGL to complete an wonder fast and maybe 2 to hit these early 1700's time frames. A Scientific Civ would have given me a better chance of that and I wouldn't have waited turns for a pre build after I hit Great Wall. If I got a SGL on Literature I could have had the GL in 1400 BC and Maus pretty fast thereafter. Babylon gives you Scientifc / Religious and the early settler may not be as important (I may look at the downloads from the top 10 games to see timelines and where the Wonders were built (Cap or 2nd city).
I can see playing to 1000 BC to see if you get a SGL and dumping any game where you don't get one. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Here is the timeline of culture builds:
Temple 3400 BC
Pyramids 1425 BC
Library 1125 BC
Maus 800 BC
GL 390 BC
Great Wall 150 BC (2 turn anarchy to Monarchy, Republic not yet mine through GL)
Colosseum 90 BC
Cathedral 70 AD
Sistine Chapel 470 AD
Knights Templar 590 AD
University 670 AD
Copernicus 810 AD
Heroic Epic 820 AD
Smiths Trading 990 AD
Shakespeares Theatre 1160 AD
20K HOF ATTEMPT
I realized that I lost my "Machiavellian" status on the Civ III HOF status because my one 20k submission (1812 Small Demigod) got pushed off the board by 22 turns. So looking at the HOF for 20k it looks like the most achievable on a difficulty level I can reasonably handle at this stage is Standard / Monarch, where the current #10 date is 1745 AD. I figured I could give that a run.
Recently I did a 20k cultural victory for fun just to build all the wonders, so I wasn't totally out of practice. I read up on some 20k strategy and tried out an archipelago map with the Babylonians for Sci/Rel and the nature of the map left me with very little opportunity for early expansion to generate the tech I would need, especially with my opponents doing the dumb island-based zero tech massive warrior/spearman armies.
So I decided to go continental / warm / 5 billion for good food production and instead of the Babylonians, I decided to try Arabia for (1) expansionist - wanted to pop an early settler or city to be my settler factory; (2) religious to start a temple right away and get one built to double its culture in as few turns as possible.
I got a dream set up with two forests (one on a river), five bonus grasslands, and a ridge of hills with fresh water to start (not on the ocean). On Turn 2 I popped a barb hut and got a city that would barely overlap with my capital AND had two grassland cows. A perfect 4 turn settler factory. After one scout in the capital, it was straight to a temple. A quick early meeting with my neighbors the Dutch and the Zulu got me Masonry and Alphabet and I was off to the races for Writing / Philosophy. After the temple was built in Mecca in 3400, I started on the Pyramids while city #2 chopped a granary while growing rapidly to size 4 and started spitting out settlers. I spread out rapidly across the large sub-continent I was placed on, with a 2-tile choke point to the Zulu. The starting position gave me reasonable access to 2 luxes and a long road slog to a 3rd. With a rapidly growing and producing Mecca, the Pyramids were built in 1425 BC - I felt pretty good about getting them done that fast.
I had a short gap before I got Literature, and agonized over slaving Mecca down for the Library. I completed it in 1125 after I built Barracks and then realized that I had no pressure on the Great Library and that the Mausoleum of Mausallos would keep the Meccans happy as the population grew to 12. I completed Maus 800 BC and then hit the Great Library in 390 BC. I then went for Temple of Artemis for my last Ancient Age Great Wonder, but it got hit in a wonder cascade and I wound up with the Great Wall in 150 BC. I had flipped to Monarchy with 2 turn anarchy right after I built the Great Wall. Since I was teching and the pace of the AI was SUPER slow at this point, I wasn't feeling great about cash rushing (via worker) a Colosseum in 90 BC since it put me down to about 150 gold and then had to build the Cathedral in 70 AD. I had to wait a few turns and built some catapults to crush the Zulus while Feudalism finished (not being Scientific hurt me here - I had no pre-builds to span the time), and started Sun Tzu as a pre-build for Sistine. I hit Sistine in 470 AD. I started another pre-build with Leonardo's for Invention with JS Bach's in mind but then decided to grab Knights Templar in 590 AD for the free units.
By this time, I hit a Golden Age with my Ansar Warriors and was in a war to rid my continent of the Dutch and hopefully create an Army from the elites I built when I crushed the Zulus. Then I built a University in 670 from scratch after being cash poor from pushing techs and doing a cash tech buy. I got Copernicus in 810, and built Heroic Epic with my second MGL in 820. I thought I had JS Bach's easy since my competitor was Chichen Itza with a lot of irrigated grasslands around it. The joke was on me - I missed it by 5 turns and had to pivot to Adam Smith's, which I got in 990. I traded my way to Free Artistry and got Shakespeare's Theater in 1160 AD.
At this point, I was fighting off the Maya and Dutch on my East and actually losing ground to the Maya with some of the most horrendous RNG I've ever seen. Healthy veteran Ansar Warriors were losing on offense to unfortified damaged Mayan Knights on grassland at an alarming rate and the Mayan knights seems to have no trouble at all beating Pikes fortified behind city walls. Tired from the wars, I finally thought about whether I was doing well enough from culture to hit my goal of pre-1745.
Ugh, I was generating only 81 culture per turn at this point and had 6971 culture total. I was 160 turns away and wouldn't finish better than the mid 1800s even with some additional high shield / low culture Wonders. What a bummer. I really thought I was going strong and only missed out on JS Bach of the wonders I really wanted.
I am really trying to figure out what my mistakes were. I could have prioritized Music Theory and gotten JS Bachs but I might have lost Copernicus. After being dead in the Ancient Era, it felt like the AI were zooming in the Middle Ages and were trading amongst themselves more productively. I probably should have put Great Library ahead of Museum of Mausallos and gotten the higher culture earlier. Obviously making myself cash-poor through teching made me unable to rush the Colosseum and University when I should have. I wasn't able to get the AI to pay me very much for tech since they always seemed broke - I picked up a few 15-20 gpt a few times but that's it. Maybe could I have gotten into the late 1700's for a finish?
Not sure where to go on my next attempt. I love building in the cap for the lack of corruption and early culture/temple. Maybe I give that up in favor of City 2. I really like Expansionist Civs and Religious for the early Temple and the ability to pop the 2nd settler / town and tech trade early with fast scouts. Maybe Pangaea is better so I can hit more civs early - my first contact with the other contact was very late. Great Library and 6 culture per turn should have been built before Maus. I could have gotten Mecca up to 12 population faster. I could have been better with commerce in outlying cities to tech faster, and I could have gone Republic for more commerce and faster tech and more gold.
In the end, I feel like you need at least one SGL to complete an wonder fast and maybe 2 to hit these early 1700's time frames. A Scientific Civ would have given me a better chance of that and I wouldn't have waited turns for a pre build after I hit Great Wall. If I got a SGL on Literature I could have had the GL in 1400 BC and Maus pretty fast thereafter. Babylon gives you Scientifc / Religious and the early settler may not be as important (I may look at the downloads from the top 10 games to see timelines and where the Wonders were built (Cap or 2nd city).
I can see playing to 1000 BC to see if you get a SGL and dumping any game where you don't get one. Any thoughts/suggestions?
Here is the timeline of culture builds:
Temple 3400 BC
Pyramids 1425 BC
Library 1125 BC
Maus 800 BC
GL 390 BC
Great Wall 150 BC (2 turn anarchy to Monarchy, Republic not yet mine through GL)
Colosseum 90 BC
Cathedral 70 AD
Sistine Chapel 470 AD
Knights Templar 590 AD
University 670 AD
Copernicus 810 AD
Heroic Epic 820 AD
Smiths Trading 990 AD
Shakespeares Theatre 1160 AD
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