Blackbetsy HOF Attempts

For the Slingshot it's probably better to self-research CoL before Philo, and just camp next to any huts during that time. It's super annoying to see the AI pop any of them (esp. if they get barbs!), but there's a decent chance you'll finish the ancient age once you do pop the remaining huts (mebbes not on a Small map tho').

Also, as another idea, slow down the research on Philosophy. Like maybe start off at 90% or whatever your maximum is. Then turn it back to 20% or 10% with 5 turns left. Then once you pop Code of Laws, then finish the research on Philosophy. But, you have to have enough huts to pop for that to work also.
 
It strikes me that there is a case for finding but not popping ANY huts until you meet all the civs or at least get all the unique techs - Masonry from the Persians, Warrior Code from the Germans, etc.

I've thought this also.
 
I have a game going @470AD where I'm headed to a 690AD finish (if I either get Fission or trade for it through the Big Picture). That's because my Palace has 22 turns left on it, even though I am researching Flight in 5 turns (golden age just ended, or I would have been able to 4-turn Flight) and just have Mass Prod and MT left, so 13 turns of research left. I am building the Palace in the Colossus / Cope / Newton science city, and I did build a Factory but didn't squeeze in a Coal Plant because I didn't have enough gold to rush it (I have been running deficit to get to 4 turns on a lot of techs). I thought after the Golden Age it would still have about the right amount of shields to finish on time but I was way off.

I have Hoover Dam finishing in 14 turns in one city that has been building some other wonder for a while, and that might cut 1-2 turns off of the Palace, which would bring me to either a 680 or 670 finish. If I am producing 31 shields (2 wasted, 29 produced), how does the Hoover Dam boost that? I've never quite understood the Factory / Power Plant calculation. Is it just 31 * 0.5 as a boost? If I go from 31 to 45 with 4 wasted, that's 41 shields per turn and it would be a 2-turn reduction to 670 AD.

Those things turn out to be a big deal. Here's the Small Warlord chart:

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It is possible that with production inefficiency rounding (I might be at 21.2 turns) I might be closer and therefore the extra shields will get me to 660 AD. I am at work and can't check CivAssistII, so I'm not sure.

BUT, I have 3 techs left to get an SGL, which I could use to rush the UN the turn after I hit the Modern Age, i.e., 610 AD. I have a 14% chance of that. I am 100% counting on either pulling Fission or being able to trade for it on the Big Picture, I didn't save ToE for Fission as a tech.

This game is 25 turns faster than my 880 AD game because although I didn't pop a settler, I did hit an SGL with Horseback Riding and had the Pyramids built in the 2000's BC. That makes the biggest difference by far. I didn't wait to pop huts until I met other civs (2 of them took a long time to find, including the Byz with Alphabet).

But its still really bad that I messed up the Palace build on what otherwise would be a 600 AD / very solid 3rd place finish. I mean, @Lord Emsworth and @PrinceMyshkin are no slouches - so being around their finishes is pretty good in its own right, but can't help but to be frustrated with myself on the own goal here.
 
Factories and Powerplants only boost the unwasted shields, so 31 shields with 2 wasted = 29 shields, + 100% boost (Factory +50%, Hydro +50%) --> 58 shields per turn.

If you have an 'excess' citizen to assign as a Specialist in a fully developed core-town containing shield- and commerce-multipliers, and with only a little corruption/waste, it may well be worth running a Policeman, rather than a Scientist, for those 2 extra SPT (1 shield saved by the Cop themselves, plus 1 boosted shield from the Factory+Hydro) -- in addition to the 2 beakers you'll get from the decorrupted Commerce with the Lib+Uni-boost (or, I guess, the 2 gold you'd get from a Market+Bank boost).
 
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Factories and Powerplants only boost the unwasted shields, so 31 shields with 2 wasted = 29 shields, + 100% boost (Factory +50%, Hydro +50%) --> 58 shields per turn.

If you have an 'excess' citizen to assign as a Specialist in a fully developed core-town containing shield- and commerce-multipliers, and with only a little corruption/waste, it may well be worth running a Policeman, rather than a Scientist, for those 2 extra SPT (1 shield saved by the Cop themselves, plus 1 boosted shield from the Factory+Hydro) -- in addition to the 2 beakers you'll get from the decorrupted Commerce with the Lib+Uni-boost (or, I guess, the 2 gold you'd get from a Market+Bank boost).
Thanks. It's 31 shields 2 waste 29 produced AFTER the factory, so the 29 is 1.5X real shields. That must be 19 unwasted shields (seems right), so the Hydro Plant probably only boosts up another 9 shields to 38 shields. Depending on shield overrun, that's at most 2 turns saved to 670 AD.
 
If you have an 'excess' citizen to assign as a Specialist in a fully developed core-town containing shield- and commerce-multipliers, and with only a little corruption/waste, it may well be worth running a Policeman, rather than a Scientist, for those 2 extra SPT (1 shield saved by the Cop themselves, plus 1 boosted shield from the Factory+Hydro) -- in addition to the 2 beakers you'll get from the decorrupted Commerce with the Lib+Uni-boost (or, I guess, the 2 gold you'd get from a Market+Bank boost).
This is a good suggestion. I don't think I'm on the border between 5 and 6 turn Flight (and honestly, the tech turns aren't as relevant), and I can get a 4 shield boost by turning the 2 citizens working the coast into engineers (or policemen, as you noted). 4 shields * 19 turns is 76 shields, which is a 2.5 turn savings. That plus the Hoover Dam boost might get me to 660AD. At this point, that's my only real goal. If I have to go down to 6 turns for Flight, it postpones my SGL winning turn to 620 AD. But I can probably make any reduced beakers up through scientists in other cities, even if they have to starve for science.

Edit: I really should switch over to Mass Prod / 4 turns because I lose the Colossus with Flight. If Flight it my last tech, it won't matter. It's also possible that in the following 8 turns, I'm able to goose up research enough to get Flight done in 4 turns.
 
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I've thought this also.
I may try not popping huts in a game. One thing I noticed is that even at the Warlord level is that the AI can reliably research Polytheism. The Ottomans have hit it for me - I am inclined to want to give them and Babylon Mysticism as soon as I learn it / pop it.
 
Ok, we finished @650AD, if accepted, 3rd spot on Small Warlord Diplo by 2 turns. My Diplo low score goes from 4 to 3, taking my Machiavelli down to 2.333. Octathlon goes from 3.25 to 3. Pentathlon remains unchanged at 2.6. Overall Quartermaster should go to 3.2.

I've got to get a better Tiny and Standard score. Tiny is the hardest of all. Full, competitive tables all around. Standard Sid it's possible to get a #2 spot.
 
@Spoonwood, I am contemplating the Tiny Sid Diplo chart:

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Tiny Diplo has the problem of max 3 civs, and you lose the vote if there are 3 eligible civs (at best you can get 2-1-1 and you lose). But what is wrong with this strategy?

Byz 80% archipelago. Pillage route to single harbor to get all techs (no science), outpost entire coast of home continent, palace pre-build on UN. The Sid AI might get Amphibious War right before the end and kill you but why isn't it as simple as that? Seems like 1838 is slow for that kind of victory, since you really aren't trying to slow Sid AI science down?

I guess the main issue is whether you can build enough cities to have a 1,000 shield palace? At Sid is it still 24 cities? Or does the OCN math make it fewer? I don't know how possible it is to get to 24 cities on a Tiny archipelago map on Sid without settling additional islands (which would need to be outposted). But if you have a decently productive city, you can try to get UN in 200 shields from a Hoover Dam pre-build.

@Bartleby you won a Sid Diplo recently. Why did you even slow down the tech if that was your win condition? Trying to figure this one out.
 
I didn't do anything especially to slow the tech pace other than rig the map - that's more for my isolation than to hold up AI research. I suppose I did grab a lot of their gold (more than I needed to), and I didn't do anything to speed them up. I don't know for sure about the diplo game but in the space race game I played there were civs that hadn't met each other very late in the game--giving them contacts might help a little? It's not possible to gift them luxuries while you're disconnecting the capital. Actually, one thing I didn't do was gift around the techs as I got them (if I couldn't sell them profitably enough), that could possibly avoid some duplicate reseearch?
 
@Bartleby that makes sense. I do think that the biggest obstacle to Tiny Diplo is the 25% rule for UN vote eligibility. I guess the best possibility is to have something like a 20% island and have a dominant AI that is more like 40% with the other 2 at 20%. I'm going to study the other Diplo victories and see who owned what. Maybe they were played as domination games such that 2nd place was pretty small.

I don't know how well the Vikings would work on Tiny to possibly get up to the Domination limit.
 
Byz 80% archipelago.
The tech pace is almost surely slow with that map.

Play 60% pangea and things will go faster. At this point, since you want higher placing entries, it really does seem worth your time to try that. Store up a bank of gold so you can get their gpt. Then you can probably afford all medieval technologies and the first level industrial technologies. At some point purchase libraries and universities, and start research when Electricity becomes a possibility. Don't worry about getting a 2nd level free tech for this level.

Seems like 1838 is slow for that kind of victory, since you really aren't trying to slow Sid AI science down?

Probably the number 2 through 4 entries did not use paying gpt for a luxury + technology and pillaging. Those entries probably had to catchup to the AIs.


I guess the main issue is whether you can build enough cities to have a 1,000 shield palace?

Hoover's Dam might work as a prebuild, since it's 800 shields, while the cost for the AIs of the U. N. is 400 shields. I do believe 24 cities correct as Theoden's table indicates.
 
Play 60% pangea and things will go faster. At this point, since you want higher placing entries, it really does seem worth your time to try that. Store up a bank of gold so you can get their gpt. Then you can probably afford all medieval technologies and the first level industrial technologies. At some point purchase libraries and universities, and start research when Electricity becomes a possibility. Don't worry about getting a 2nd level free tech for this level.

I am not sure I understand how to win against Sid on a Pangaea, much less on a Tiny Pang where the Sid AI advantages (3 settlers, free units, bonus support) are at their most extreme. For instance, this table amazes me:

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If I could get on that table, I think I could do anything in this game.

Added: @boogaboo did a real community service here:

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Oh wow, he wrote a whole article!
 
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Interesting about @boogaboo's save files - he abandoned the all Jaguar Warrior strategy for Sid. He was building archers by the mid-2500's and then swordsman at the end.

On the Tiny Diplos, they are just lucky to have a dominant #1 civ that denies 25% to the other 2 AI.
 
My best on Standard/ Regent is 4, which is through a Standard / Regent / Diplo game. I look at this chart after having done a 650 AD Small Warlord and think it's possible to get a 3rd place to shave off .125 off of my Octathlon and .2 off my Pentathlon. I did a 970 AD on this chart for 4th place, so I need to be better by 20 turns. I *think* I've learned some more, and I didn't get an SGL in that game for Pyramids.

I have been playing around with a couple of games. In one, I didn't get the Slingshot! Some AI I couldn't find (probably Greece) bee-lined for Philosophy.

I also think that central to success is an early SGL for the Pyramids. You cannot underestimate how important Pyramids are. I think a CB SGL Pyramids subtracts more than 20 turns from the game, which is exactly what I need. I am having Mapfinder compile games, and I'm going to just dump games without a CB SGL. Some of this is also a map issue - the contorted Pangaeas with hard to find AI's are a pain as well for my strategy of not popping huts until we get the starting techs. I am popping the first close hut in hope of a second settler.

I think to get a #3 here, I need the trifecta of (1) setter pop; (2) early SGL; (3) colussus/cope/newton's city (this is not hard at Regent).

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Just finished a Standard Regent Diplo game with an 830 AD finish. So I improved by 14 turns, not the 21 turns I needed. I got a very early SGL (great) in the Medieval Ages in 1200 BC (good), but missed the Colossus. I also had a core that was adjacent to a very large desert that I didn't settle. Could I improve by 7 turns? I think I need to micro manage more to have shorter research turns in the Ancient Age and Medieval Age.
 
Have been playing some games to the end of the Middle Ages. If you don't have the Pyramids, you can't score well. It's all a tight range around 900-1000 AD without the Pyramids early. I'm thinking of dumping anything w/o the Pyramids after Mysticism (I research Mysticism after CB because the starting techs are all known). Truly good scores are early settler + SGL (edit - this was the case for SirPleb's very fast Diplo Chieftain victory - he hit CB and Mysticism SGLs and built the Pyramids and Colossus).
 
Yes -- > Popped city + SGL with Mysticism plus relentless settler production = 630 AD finish, good for 3rd place. BUT I did have terrible luck on the turn of the ages, which resulted in Chivalry and Ironclads as free tech. Just that bad luck kept me out of the #2 spot and possibly a #1 spot. I also had some bad luck at the end of the Ancient Age (after having good luck up that point) by not getting the last Ancient Age tech from a hut, otherwise I could have been in the Medieval Age in about 1350 BC. I've never been in a Republic before 2000 BC before!

@superslug, the 4000 BC file is going to have 2 reloads in it. First the MapFinder re-load, and then I loaded the save, saw it was a good start, and hit Ctrl-L to write down the MapFinder file number so I knew what file I left off with. Instead of escaping, I hit enter and re-loaded the file. I hadn't made any moves at all, just re-loaded accidentally.
 
It strikes me that the answer on fast Diplo at lower levels is luck (SGL), luck (huts), luck (luxes), expand (settlers), expand (workers), expand (settlers).

I need lower Tiny and Chieftain scores. This particular table now interests me, and I'm intrigued by the gap between 1 and 2. @Lord Emsworth with another fantastic game at the top:

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On a Tiny map, I'm not sure that hut pops make that much of a difference. I believe food / Sumeria is probably the right play, but that Lord Emsworth Russian score is intriguing - maybe he just was super lucky with huts, I'll look at his save.

Clearly you go with a commercial (Alphabet), an industrious (Masonry), and Germany (Warrior Code) to begin.
 
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