Challenge #4 - The Mini-Me Challenge

[PaganPaulWhisky]

Spoiler :

Your firepower graph really jumped at 500BC and kept rising. Impressive. Couldn't quite see what caused the plateau between 800-1200AD, but whatever it was set you up for a good finish.

The early spike was probably due to pop rushing and chopping forests (great technique with expansive). I usually do this much earlier, but I did not want to stall acquisition of macemen. The late plateau was probably caused by construction of the heroic epic since I did build this pretty late (one of my errors). My second city was a monster for production and was cranking out grenadiers every 2 turns with HE. My third city was sub par, but I really wanted to get that bronze hooked up ASAP and did not want to wait for a border expansion. The gold mine helped with research too, however I think selecting another spot would have been better.

 

[PeteJ]

I razed 54 cities. Not a bad first try, but I could've had at least 15 more. The problem for me was that I ran out of cities to raze. The last 200 years was basically me waiting for the computer to build more cities.

Spoiler :

I started with a CS slingshot and cottaged my capital. I managed to pop 2 settlers pre-3000 BC. I settled both of them by 2700 BC, but I should've saved one of them for after iron working. Because of this I had no iron and I had to jump straight from Keshiks to Calvary. Other than that, I think I did pretty well..... maybe too well considering I ran out of enemies. I should've left each civ with 1 or 2 cities instead of completely eliminating them. Next time I will do things a little differently, if I ever get around to playing this again

 

[scherbchen]

70!

could have been a conquest victory, but julius is a spoilsport and builds not only one but two cities on islands.

guess who has two thumbs and no coastal cities?

surprisingly fun to restart, didn´t expect that. almost quit halfway because my start was so slooooow i thought.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

I still haven't tried this game. Might not get to it at all, but I was thinking of another idea.

So it's not legal to gift the AI settlers. OK, but what about gifting military units or workers? The question is whether that would help them much. I'm thinking it would, because

• the AI seems to insist on escorting settlers with at least one and often two military units. If you give them units, then they can focus more on building settlers instead of units.
• with the AI's production and growth penalties on Warlord difficulty, they're going to have a tough time making workers. The workers they do make will also be penalized (as far as I know) with longer work times to build improvements. If you give the AI a few extra workers, they'll have better land which will lead to better production which will lead to more cities. You can always capture them back later. In fact, you might be able to just cycle a few extra workers among AI's -- gift to one, steal back later, gift to another, ...
• if you make sure to always give them the worst possible units (ideally whatever unit is least effective against your main force; for example, lots of spearmen against your axe and macemen), they might be less likely to augment their force with better troops. Let them build on their own, and they'll make a nice, diverse army, but give them units and they'll have whatever you gave them.

Of course, this could all backfire completely, but it might be worth trying.

 

[carl corey]

I've played this like a normal game. No "gifting". Made a huge mistake in the beginning when I waited too long to put my second city down and I got beaten to the spot. Grrrr. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I razed 41 cities, but the end was sooo fun! I'll post the save and some comments tonight.

I'll definitely try this again.

Oh, just to add: I never ran out of cities to raze. Don't worry about gifts, go get'em. At least on your first try. If you're too good for them, you can worry about helping them.

Nice job, scherbchen, I think you've reached some kind of limit there.

 

[cabert]

i'm trying this one, and i'm completely out of my comfort zone.
3 cities...
that's not much!

Spoiler :

I'm having the same problem PeteJ mentionned about Iron, though i only popped one settler from a hut.
I tried a different option : you can't have all land you want because of the 3 city limit? so what! culture is your friend. i have founded 3 religions in my second city, i have built the oracle and the GL in my capital = plenty land for me .
The bad part of this is you need hammers for building wonders. Hammers that would be better spent in troops! + keshiks tend to die often... (i have one heroic keshiks, somewhere around 26 xp, all other died)
CS slingshot is easy at this level, even while razing a few egyptian cities .
I'm at 1000 AD, and razed 13 cities. That's kinda slow, isn't it?I attacked egypt because i wanted to grab a worker and i missed it . I sued for peace after razing the same city twice (just healing next to the ruins, and saw the settler coming. In a normal game i would have attacked the stack before he settled, but not this time.
I killed the russians (no cossacks, thank you) and kept Moscow for the high food, the english (no redcoats, thank you) and the japanese (no samurais, thank you). Now it's spanish time. I've got a small expeditionnary task force, that should raze a few of those paella centers.

I'm aiming for conquest with a vast tech lead, cavalry should help me out of this slow pace.

It's fun to see how different the game is when you change the objective.

 

[carl corey]

cabert, I don't think 13 cities at 1000AD is THAT low. You'd be surprised what you can achieve once you concetrate on upgrading your army and getting a few good stacks to work.

I haven't built any keshiks though. Had only one that was upgraded from an early chariot. I still think they're pretty much useless.

 

[cabert]

cabert, I don't think 13 cities at 1000AD is THAT low. You'd be surprised what you can achieve once you concetrate on upgrading your army and getting a few good stacks to work.

I haven't built any keshiks though. Had only one that was upgraded from an early chariot. I still think they're pretty much useless.

problem is i don't have anything to upgrade
money is ok, but keshiks die too often = won't upgrade.
I have a good production potential, though. City n°2 with HE can build a mace in 2 turns , capital has a lot of forest to chop, i have workers all around the place, and city n°3 can whip a lot. Not being able to build the globe theater is making it less powerful though.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

Made a huge mistake in the beginning when I waited too long to put my second city down and I got beaten to the spot. Grrrr. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Hey, no problem. Raze it! The fools must be punished for their insolence!

Cabert, I haven't played this challenge, but my intuition is that 13 cities by 1000AD is fine. I suspect that the best strategy is to sort of sit back and wait, letting the AI develop cities while you develop an army. Then pounce at the last minute and just go nuts with razing everything. I don't mean completely sit back like a pacifist, but I suspect that if you graphed out razings vs. time, you'd see a very steep rise in the curve around 1300 or 1400AD.

 

[carl corey]

I actually captured it instead of razing it, despite the fact that I had a settler in waiting. Was too afraid that someone else would settle it. And it was my iron city. Argh. It's just that I didn't find any good iron city locations and decided founding the third city there could wait. Next time I'll build the second settler faster to take the iron too.

 

[cabert]

Hey, no problem. Raze it! The fools must be punished for their insolence!

Cabert, I haven't played this challenge, but my intuition is that 13 cities by 1000AD is fine. I suspect that the best strategy is to sort of sit back and wait, letting the AI develop cities while you develop an army. Then pounce at the last minute and just go nuts with razing everything. I don't mean completely sit back like a pacifist, but I suspect that if you graphed out razings vs. time, you'd see a very steep rise in the curve around 1300 or 1400AD.

hey! that's why i noted it! to see where there was really different options, if i can gather enough time for a second run.
I can already see that early razing is easier (warlords level : you can face archers for a long time = easy prey for keshiks), but you pay it in the long run : the keshiks die and you have to build many fresh units.
I think the slow motion, with axes first, then cat + axes, then cat+maces, then cat+grenadiers may have fewer losses = more steady.

 

[carl corey]

My 1st try, 1-short-of-the answer to life, the universe, and everything:

Spoiler :

4000BC & early years: The people of yada-yada-yada... Settled in place. Started building two additional scouts to take advantage of no barbs. Got 3 techs I think from huts, including Bronze Working. Dumb luck. I'll take it.

Early wonders: built Stonehenge, Oracle, Pyramids and Great Library all in my capital. Easy as pie, I forgot you could get away with this on Warlord. I managed it only once on Prince with a 4 clams + 1 fish + stone capital playing with Cathy. Ah, those were the days...

Capital:

My first prophet was used to lightbulb Theology to enable Theocracy. All the subsequent military was built using Barracks+Theocracy, no Vassalage. Maybe I'll change it next time. Christianity and then Confucianism were founded in my second city which did NOT get copper, but a lot of floodplains instead.

2nd city:

Weedy move number one: I waited too long to build Iron city:

I had copper from a capital border pop, so I built Axes and started the war on England to get to Iron city. Stupid AI. grrr...

My troops during the game: Axes+Spearman(heal&march), then Macemen+Catapults+Elephants+Spearman(heal&march), then I brought in a few Knights and finished with Grenadiers.

Research was another move: I'm not sure why but I thought Liberalism was a priority. I got Chemistry with it, but seeing how I didn't build any Universities I might as well have researched Chemistry on my own. Drama (for Theaters), Engineering, Civil Service (Macemen & Bureaucracy), Theology and Chemistry is about all I think is useful to research. Pretty hard to get to Cavalry, and the Grenadiers can do a good job on their own.

At the end I was really abusing the whip + rush buying a lot of units. Felt like the world was coming to an end. I think I just discovered how powerful a smaller empire with high food cities can really be.

P.S. I had to reload once since I accidentally kept a city instead of razing it.

 

[Dr Elmer Jiggle]

My troops during the game: Axes+Spearman(heal&march), then Macemen+Catapults+Elephants+Spearman(heal&march),

Do you realize that March only helps that unit? So with Medic I and March, your medics can heal while they move, but are your medics actually getting injured? I wouldn't expect that to be a very useful combination under most circumstances. I'm usually more inclined to use Medic II if one of my medics earns an additional promotion.

 

[Raiser]

4 Days left for official entries, and Scherbchen stomps on 364 innocent units to retake the lead with a narrow margin of 1 city razed. Have we reached an upper limit with 70 cities?

Congrats to new entries PeteJ with 54 and Carl Corey with an almost Douglas Adamsian 41. Not quite the answer, but valiant efforts non the less.


The updated leader board looks like this:

Scherbchen............70

PaganPaulWhisky...69

PeteJ....................54

Mice.....................50

Carl Corey.............41

Lateralis................36

Castiglione.............29

(Only the posted 1600AD saves are listed here. If I've missed anyone let me know.)

Sounds like there maybe a few more second attempt scores on the way, which are welcome. Then it'll be time to start throwing out ideas for challenge #5 as we await the winners choice.




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[cabert]

i'll post a try this weekend
I thought i would be able to go for a second game, but it's not going to happen.
I'm targeting something like 30/40 cities.
My advice to those who start a new game : after 1000BC, don't bother with mouted units! build roads!

 

[Lynxx]

I am having some problems with this challange due to the low performance of my laptop. I made it to 1500bc when i got restless because of all the lag an... I just cant imagine playing it all the way throught to 1600ad with tons of troops...

Razing 70 cities is a mighty fine score! Congratulations Scherbchen.

 

[carl corey]

Aww... sad to hear about the performance problems, Lynxx. Any way you could play it on another computer? Things might not go that bad though, you'll have more troops but less AIs to deal with. But if it's already lagging in 1500BC... Ouch.

 

[Raiser]

Ahhhh, apologises to all. There was mention in the pre-challenge discussion thread of keeping the challenges do-able for those with vertically challenged 'puters.

I blithely ignored this in my search for a game that would test a variety of player skill levels. i.e. low diff setting, but many opponents to test the advanced player. With hindsight perhaps I should have gone for Noble & 5ai's, rather than Warlord & 10ai's.

To give an idea to others of the system requirements for this challenge:
If you completed this challenge, what are the spec's of your 'puter and did it play ok?

For what it's worth mine are - Athlon64 3000 processor, 1.25 Gig of RAM and a 256MB Radeon X800 graphics card. Oh, and it played fine.

But hopefully one of you completed on a more economical system.



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[carl corey]

My system is a Pentium 4 2.4GHz with 1.5GB RAM with 128MB memory GeForce FX5200 video card. The card is pretty old, so's the proc, but the RAM makes up for it. I have no problems going into the 1600s whatever the map size, game speed, etc.

 

[scherbchen]

ok i had to give this another go. had to reload an autosave in 1605 because there was not much to do in the late 1500s and i accidentally passed the last turn, didn´t change anything about the outcome though.

while initially i thought the replay value for this was quite low (and i apologize for saying so raiser) it reminded me very much of my civ2 experiences where i always beelined for bombers and had a pretty good time on monarch (never really managed the game above that except for some lucky punches here and there).

73 razed, i´m still sure that can be beaten though (had a lucky settler pop here though before i even started to build my first one)

Spoiler :

if you can manage with 2 cities at the beginning you will be able to get to those 2-3 off-continent cities that will always be built in the far north. just build or capture one further north or north-east. however access to copper/iron will be trickier so that might require some thought. you can also use that far off base to upgrade troops in the later ages.

to that end i would suggest the first big SOD to travel NE through german, then incan, then egyptian territory. raze some cities along the way and give them time to rebuild, maybe hassle the greeks from the new base. the new units can fight the immediate wars against the english/indian/russian/spanish. i wouldn´t finish off every opponent you fight but leave them with a city, you might get another raze or two out of it by games´end.

i will try that this weekend i think, however my civ skills won´t be able to keep up with the costs of that farflung city. i run into financial trouble with the initial 3 cities close by as is -.-

80-85 is doable imho, but i expect to be surprised by higher numbers

thanks for the fun challenge raiser

EDIT: typo-time