brennan
Argumentative Brit
So. Moving on from the last two games I felt i'd learned a few things about improving my tech rate. The most important thing being that I needed a larger/faster land grab than i've been used to playing with in the past - and I think i've got the hang of putting that into action.
With that in mind I chose my next game as a Diplomatic race to master the secret of Fission, build the United Nations and become the first Secretary General.
I've decided to include as many opponents as the map will handle (Standard) and take all the Scientific Civs for maximum tech pace. With myself playing the Persians (Immortals always stuck me as cheating) that left one slot open, in which I put the English since their commercial trait can be an advantage in a prolonged game and their expansionist trait can make for lots of tech-popping early on.
So it's a Standard sized Pangaea map, maximum land area. Difficulty is only Regent so this should be a pushover, i'm only playing against the HoF tables here.
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My start was a good one, I quickly expanded to a good size with 4 luxuries, horses and iron online. I guess around 400BC I upgraded all my warriors to Immortals and declared war on my unfortunate English neighbours. The English had been tech leaders until this point, but they were no match for my UU. This is how things looked at 10AD, with the English reduced to a single city:
The last English city fell one or two turns later.
I believe that left me with 6 luxuries and I felt I should expand a little more, so I targeted the Babylonians just to the North of me for a supply of dyes (luxury number 7), then captured the Greek city of Knossos to the North West, to give me control of the choke point to the other half of the Pangaea. I built the Forbidden Palace as quickly as I could just to the North of the Former English Empire, in a position to give me a big second core.
In terms of tech rate this was extremely successful: Around 500AD I think I researched Education in five turns and that was the last tech that didn't take me 4 turns. I industrialised in 890AD and Modernised in 1420. The pace seemed blistering to me, but looking back I see that the dates aren't all that much better than for my SS game. I guess that the reduction in level makes a difference to the AI, who were no help at all after I reached the Middle Ages, just researching non-compulsory techs like Democracy etc. They weren't exactly a great source of income for gpt either.
My finish date was 1430 - I had a pre-build set to finish about 4 turns after I entered the MA, but used the Big Picture to trade a **** load of techs about, which let me buy Fission from the Germans (my free tech was Rocketry) workers mined hell out of the countryside around Persepolis, but I only hurried the build by a turn or two. I spent those turns giving techs away like they were water, then declared on the Germans, who I figured for my competition in the vote, giving away more techs to seal alliances with 4 other civs against them.
In the end I won Diplomatic victory with 3789 points.
Apart from mis-timing my pre-build by a couple turns I also shot myself in the foot by getting annoyed with the Babylonians: They sent an obviously hostile force onto my lands around 1100AD, so I ordered them off and they declared. The result was a forgone conclusion, with my vastly superior forces capturing Samarra and marching on towards Babylon itself - I was thinking here that I could capture the Pyramids and save myself some upkeep on granaries (not that I needed it). However all bar one of my stack of Immortals (14 IIRC) perished in the attempt (I think it was size 9, defended by Musketmen) which irritated me no end (the RNG gods definately hate me you know). So I cut into my research on Industrialisation after 1 turn gone, to go for Military Tradition so that I could throw Cavs at the pace instead. I didn't realise that i'd lose the turn i'd spent on Ind. as well as the four I wasted on MT. Never mind I shall try to stay more focussed next time.
Long story short, about 6 turns later I hit Babylon with 20 Artillery and 20 Cavalry. Redlined everything, reduced the place to size 4 and captured it.
So yeah, I could have managed about 6-7 turns faster without those obvious mistakes, but I guess I need to work on speeding up my start if i'm going to improve my times by much more.
My economy was monstrous at the end. I had enough cash spare to buy a dozen Police Stations when I got Communism in a trade, without making more than a dent. The artillery I sent to Babylon were all bought in 3 turns.
Compare my treasury reports at the end of my last two games:
Egypt 1730:
Persia 1430:
I was researching at the end of the Industrial age in 4 turns at only 50%!
With that in mind I chose my next game as a Diplomatic race to master the secret of Fission, build the United Nations and become the first Secretary General.
I've decided to include as many opponents as the map will handle (Standard) and take all the Scientific Civs for maximum tech pace. With myself playing the Persians (Immortals always stuck me as cheating) that left one slot open, in which I put the English since their commercial trait can be an advantage in a prolonged game and their expansionist trait can make for lots of tech-popping early on.
So it's a Standard sized Pangaea map, maximum land area. Difficulty is only Regent so this should be a pushover, i'm only playing against the HoF tables here.
________________________________________________________________
My start was a good one, I quickly expanded to a good size with 4 luxuries, horses and iron online. I guess around 400BC I upgraded all my warriors to Immortals and declared war on my unfortunate English neighbours. The English had been tech leaders until this point, but they were no match for my UU. This is how things looked at 10AD, with the English reduced to a single city:
The last English city fell one or two turns later.
I believe that left me with 6 luxuries and I felt I should expand a little more, so I targeted the Babylonians just to the North of me for a supply of dyes (luxury number 7), then captured the Greek city of Knossos to the North West, to give me control of the choke point to the other half of the Pangaea. I built the Forbidden Palace as quickly as I could just to the North of the Former English Empire, in a position to give me a big second core.
In terms of tech rate this was extremely successful: Around 500AD I think I researched Education in five turns and that was the last tech that didn't take me 4 turns. I industrialised in 890AD and Modernised in 1420. The pace seemed blistering to me, but looking back I see that the dates aren't all that much better than for my SS game. I guess that the reduction in level makes a difference to the AI, who were no help at all after I reached the Middle Ages, just researching non-compulsory techs like Democracy etc. They weren't exactly a great source of income for gpt either.
My finish date was 1430 - I had a pre-build set to finish about 4 turns after I entered the MA, but used the Big Picture to trade a **** load of techs about, which let me buy Fission from the Germans (my free tech was Rocketry) workers mined hell out of the countryside around Persepolis, but I only hurried the build by a turn or two. I spent those turns giving techs away like they were water, then declared on the Germans, who I figured for my competition in the vote, giving away more techs to seal alliances with 4 other civs against them.
In the end I won Diplomatic victory with 3789 points.
Apart from mis-timing my pre-build by a couple turns I also shot myself in the foot by getting annoyed with the Babylonians: They sent an obviously hostile force onto my lands around 1100AD, so I ordered them off and they declared. The result was a forgone conclusion, with my vastly superior forces capturing Samarra and marching on towards Babylon itself - I was thinking here that I could capture the Pyramids and save myself some upkeep on granaries (not that I needed it). However all bar one of my stack of Immortals (14 IIRC) perished in the attempt (I think it was size 9, defended by Musketmen) which irritated me no end (the RNG gods definately hate me you know). So I cut into my research on Industrialisation after 1 turn gone, to go for Military Tradition so that I could throw Cavs at the pace instead. I didn't realise that i'd lose the turn i'd spent on Ind. as well as the four I wasted on MT. Never mind I shall try to stay more focussed next time.
Long story short, about 6 turns later I hit Babylon with 20 Artillery and 20 Cavalry. Redlined everything, reduced the place to size 4 and captured it.
So yeah, I could have managed about 6-7 turns faster without those obvious mistakes, but I guess I need to work on speeding up my start if i'm going to improve my times by much more.
My economy was monstrous at the end. I had enough cash spare to buy a dozen Police Stations when I got Communism in a trade, without making more than a dent. The artillery I sent to Babylon were all bought in 3 turns.
Compare my treasury reports at the end of my last two games:
Egypt 1730:
Persia 1430:
I was researching at the end of the Industrial age in 4 turns at only 50%!
and then to the Koreans who appeared to be my tougest opponents.
Lousy rotten domination limit ![[pissed]](/images/smilies/pissed.gif "Pissed [pissed]")
