Challenge #5: Million Dollar Monty

[lilnev]

A spoiler to the hut positions would be appreciated here. . . .
---

Spoiler :

I found five: the starting hut. Head SE, then E, there's one on a desert hill midway between you and Isabella. SW from there a couple of steps. Then SSW (I think a couple of steps SW initially avoids a jungle square and shortens the walk. Then W, the last one's around the southern end of the dye fields.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Welnic]

Second try, 51559 with 1226 GPT. I think I could do a little better, as my research actually went much better in the first game thanks to that pyramid thingy. There was one thing that I did find out about Great Merchants. I popped my last one in 1780, so there was no time to get him anywhere but to my nearest neighbor, where I didn't have open borders and couldn't get them. But I was able to run the GM down and do a trade mission in his country anyway. The only better timing was having someone else finish the Taj Mahal in 1795 since I had a city working on it that wasn't going to finish it anyway. I did that since it is a better value than making wealth, especially if you have a forge, but I was very lucky that it actually paid off.

Spoiler :

This game I went after Izzy instead of having her attack me. But I have to say that here terrain and what she does with it suck. If I played another I think that I would make sure that I got the pyramids. I would set up the second city to grab the gold, not the third, and I would do whatever it takes to expand it to actually get the gold. Then I would attack Sal after he had a chance to clear out all of that jungle.

View attachment 139728

 

[Raiser]

Thanks for the hut locales Tauro.


---

But I have to say Izzy terrain and what she does with it suck.

Congrats on the 51k, Welnic. The nice thing about getting in very early against Izzy is it gives you the option of sacking her city and placing a better one.


---

 

[Tauro]

Emh...ergh...
81617


But......

But.......

BUT........

It's a RELOAD

So feel free to put it in the trash

An incredible amount of GMs: 11. Last one went in 1795 and the tenth was BURNED in a GA LOL.
I stopped teching in 1350 after economy, arrived to riflemen.

Freedom statue, and Salad took out as Izzy.
Plus Spiral minareth (from saladin, built while warring) and shrines refining.

My game now is really over, I'll start working in a few days

 

[Tauro]

Raiser you should thx lilnev

Spoiler :

The other I know are
1 north of napo, about six squadres south the banana gem bronze hut

the last SE of the middle jungle hut, on the coast noth of salad

It's almost impossible to get all, if you don't pop a scout.

 

[scherbchen]

wow that´s an impressive amount

so that will leave me going for a peaceful -yet decent- amount as i have no hope whatsoever of beating that! i must be doing something terribly wrong as i cannot even begin to spawn that many great persons, let alone GMs. then again being non-religious kinda deprives me of the pacifism benefit, please tell me you ran pacifism there for some time ^^

good luck at work, it´s back tu university for me this week so i won´t be able to give this many more tries either

good job!

 

[Tauro]

I switched ASAP, after had built all the grocers
I was very lucky couse I had three GP farms (Teothicauan, tenoctitlan and Madrid -only one GM- ), and all gave me GMs (plus one GA, one GE burned for the Taj Mahal and two GP). The reason of all those GMs is probably the fast building of markets, grocers and banks that let me spend the pop in specialist.

 

[Qwack]

75223 on technically my second attempt. My first one was to get a idea of the civ's around us and idea about oracle build date. I ended it around 1000 BC so yeah .

Basic strategy:

Spoiler :

-CS slingshot ASAP
-use boosted research from beauracracy to get up to banking.
-Stop research after banking (get the tech's required for knights first though)
-If you play this optimally, banking is possible around 500 AD.
-Cottage spam every city except the pig/corn in the south, that is merchant farm.
-Founded hinduism, buddhism and confucian. Spread hinduism to everyone on island so they are your friends. If isabella gets a religion, try to eliminate her .
-Basically, after banking you should just turn off research like a cultural victory and wait until 1800.
- My first two great people were prophets for shrines.
- Use knights + heriditary rule for happiness, knights will keep your power even with AI's until later in the game.
- Simple thing I see alot of people missing. Just put your great merchants to sleep until 1795, and burn them all on the same turn. This gives maximum gold.

I made a few mistakes in this game which cost me around 5000-10000 gold. Not enough expansion early so I ended up with only 6 cities. Saladin declared war on me in 1790 and killed my last merchant which I was sending to mecca for goldpbomb.... And didnt spread my second religion enough to get money from shrine. Someone who plays this strategy optimally can probably get 85000-90000 im guessing. I also ended up getting 2 worthless artists at around 18% odds each...

Heres the save:

 

[Tauro]

Impressive, basically couse you hadn't any wonder to boost economy and only six cities!

In my games the timing of the oracle is very strange: 10% 1200BC, 40% 1080BC (mamn date), the rest after 975 BC.

 

[lilnev]

1450 AD. About 5000 in the kitty, and 800/turn coming in. That should improve quite a bit as cottages grow up and my newer acquisitions hit their stride. 26 workers (mostly captured) have been spamming over everything; grassy hills, all but one wine tile, etc. 20 cities, plus 2 that I haven't yet taken from the Romans. I haven't decided yet whether to go after the French next or leave them in peace. Stopped building units around 1200 AD, but the army has been rolling strong; I've still got something like 14 maces and a dozen catapults. HR (for the happiness), Free Speech, Slavery, Mercantilism (nobody left to trade with, so a merchant in each city beats an extra trade route), OR (for now; once I'm done building and spreading religions I'll switch to Free Religion). Turns have been slow, between continual warfare, micro-managing my cities, and directing workers.

peace,
lilnev

 

[Newbert]

Has anyone tried intentionally missing wonders for the cash conversion? i.e. Work on a wonder until it's one turn from completion and then abandon the project. Then, when the AI finishes it, voila! a few thousand gold in your coffers.

 

[Welnic]

Has anyone tried intentionally missing wonders for the cash conversion? i.e. Work on a wonder until it's one turn from completion and then abandon the project. Then, when the AI finishes it, voila! a few thousand gold in your coffers.

I was working on the Taj Mahal in my last game for this reason. The city that was working on it wasn't going to finish it before 1800. I was very lucky that someone else finished it in 1795. I'm not sure what the exchange rate is. I can look and see what I got and how much I had invested in it. It might be 2 gold for 1 hammer.

Since you should be ahead in tech, and the AIs never seem to have much money, at least in this game, I thought of an exploit involving cashing in on a wonder. You sell a tech to all of the AIs at once that enables them to build a wonder that AIs like to build. You don't get that much money since they are usually broke. Then you build that wonder to within a turn, you could have started before you sold the techs. Then you get your money when someone finishes it. All of the other AIs get money at that time, so that turn you sell tech to them since they actually have money.

But I think the amount you would make off of this pales to just having a big empire early and setting the finance slider to 100%.

 

[Tauro]

Lilnev my past experience told me that napo has to stay alive for the very good trade routes. Before corporation I had like 30g and more from trade routes, only in teoticahuan and other four cities. Most of the routes were french cities. I don't know why, but the overseas routes probably pay less than the continental.
And I gave all economy and pushed to free market both roosy and hatty.
So if you decide to keep mercantilism take out napo: he has good cities, at least +20g x turn each, including the mantineance costs, even without any building.
But if you run free market and attack him you'll loose much money.
In my attempt I declared in 1500 and took only two cities, but the final score was lower about 20000 from my record, even If I've built freedom statue and wall street about 20 turns sooner.
And I was running on 1400gpt in 1700.

 

[Raiser]

Phew! Finally finished. Considering I got a good start on Sunday I’m surprised the mid-game took so long. So much micromanagement to do. But a thoroughly enjoyable challenge. My favourite so far, and I learnt a lot about the power of a gold-based strat that I will put to use in my standard game.

Focusing on research through Mark/Groc/Bank, rather than Lib/Obs/Uni offered some interesting options (which I’ll post about tomorrow.)

Raisers 1800AD total 111,021

Read it and weep.



Hard work. But as I said on a post at the weekend, the opening BC year’s fell right for the single-minded strategy that I had adopted.

Complete strat in the spoiler below.

But first the Fine Print. Note, I do disagree with a lot that has been written in earlier posts, but my comments are meant as constructive criticism, and are not a personal attack on your skill and intelligence .... or lack of.

Spoiler :

I mentioned when we were discussing the settings that this would be a ‘cottage race’, and I almost went the route that Qwack went to get his 75K. Total peace and 6 cities squeezed in the top West corner. But to get a high score you need more land than that area could give you alone.

Tauro had a good rush to hold more land and get 70k, but he didn’t focus on the single most powerful tool available - The Humble Cottage.


My strat:

In brief for those of you with a life:

Rush then Peace.

Get space to grow about 70 or so Towns:
- Rush Izzy.
- Block Saladin.
- Rapid EXpansion
- Work hard to get everybody the same religion.
- Gives an easy peace and zero military required post-rush.
- This allows 100% focus on cottages.
- Everything else secondary including Gr Merch’s/Shrines/Trade Routes.
- Free Speech, Printing Press, Mark/Grocer/Bank generates 14 gold per Town tile.

Oh, yes and get this all done by 1500AD to give yourself time to watch it all role in.


There's a city position map after the more detailed strat report.


---


The longer version for those that want to try it:

Start strong
Use your prescience. Move the first city to a better start location. Then get the space to build 8 strong cities by taking out a neighbour with a rush in one direction and Rapid EXpansion of settlers in another.

Spoiler :

I went four squares east with my Capital to a good location for cottages that has 3 food resources in the fat-cross to maximise whipping. Also it's more central for maintenance and closer to my rush victim. Plus it allowed better locations for the western cities.

Take Izzy’s nation fast enough to be able to really cultivate the eastern lands. Raze and build better cities if you have too, but I got lucky with her choices and took all four in one sustained attack by 200BC (to reduce diplomatic penalties.)

Tauro did well with chariots and it’s probably the best option. I chose Jaguars as I’d never used them before and 35 hammers is a better value for whipping. As cheap as Axemen, and as almost strong as Swordsmen. Crucially the fact that you do not need to connect to Horse, Copper or Iron to build a Jaguar is a real time saver when rushing.

Note: You do need Ironworking, but not the Iron resource itself. Took time to get the tech, but it was great for early tech trading away as I knew I was going 100% peace post 200BC. And with that peace in mind I traded away horses/copper/iron resources as soon as I got them.

I’m now a fan of Jags.

Peace through religion
Control religion to build 100% peace between all remaining civs. If they are not fighting each other you don’t get the ‘stop trading with my neighbour’ requests and they'll get down to building large ‘trade mission’ locations for my few merchants.

Spoiler :

Deny Salad/Julie/Naps all early religions and only spread one.

Don’t get greedy and spread a second for an additional shrine. Religion is for peace. And strong and cheap peace is more valuable than one more shrine.

I got all four of us with a Confucianism State Religion by sending missionaries to their capitals before I spread it at home. It lasted almost to the finish with everybody being ‘pleased’ with me.

I focused on spreading to Saladin as we had crushing boarders (his Theocracy isn’t a blocker with a shared religion, which is another bonus.) Later he got Islam, but I wasn’t bothered because I knew he would take ages to convert all his city from Confucianism before switching.

When he finally did I had plenty of goodwill to see me to 1800AD in peace. The other guys, who were enjoying the peace, swapped to free religion and went neutral.

Rapid EXpansion
Settle a southern city, as soon as Izzy is dead, to block Saladin from spreading out.

Then rapidly settle the lands north of the ‘blocking’ city.

Save your forests in the captured cities for workers and settlers, and chop mid-turn after switching to a worker/settler then switch back to a building before the end of the turn. That way the all important growth isn't slowed.

Concentrate your great merchants farming into 1 city. Don’t prioritize this over building a strong cottage base in the other 7 cities.

Spoiler :

When I finished I had grown 8 cities with pops 20*/19/18/18/17/16/15/12 (*starved to 3 pop.) All with no unhappy/unhealthy minuses, but the important thing is to get there early. So you can work all cottages and merchant specialists. I made it by there 1500AD. The same time I finished all needed buildings and switched to zero research.

These 300 years of 0% research made up 86,000 of my 111,000 total.

The 11 Gr Merchs, for 11x2300=25,300, turned out to be less of factor than I originally thought they would be.

With the 200 point step-up for each of the final great peeps the effort to push for, say, an extra 5 Gr Merchs for +11,500 would have crippled my core gold by at least a quarter, which would be –21,000.

So don't push this lesser strat. A Great Merchant only strat could never work like the 4000 culture-bomb strat used two challenges back.

Just give the GM’s National Epic and Pacifism from 1500AD. A longer stay on Org Rel helped me reduced the need for production from mines and allowed me to focus the vast majority of citizens on cottage tiles.

My total GP’s were 14. 11 Gr Merchs , plus 1 Gr Sci for tech, 1 Gr Proph for the Confucian Shrine and 1 Great Eng saved 29 turns on Wall Street.

Cottages, Cottages and more Cottages
Now you’ve got the space, use it. Don’t work water tiles when you can work cottages. Don’t build non-resource farms (except in the 1 Gr Merch farm city) when you can build cottages.

Keep production low. No military after your rush troops. Minimum missionaries. Granary and Mark/Groc/Bank in every city. All other buildings are luxuries.

Don’t build unnecessary Wonders. I built two world wonders and one national.

This low production allows you to focus on cottages. Cottages take 70 turns to grow to Towns. So make it your number one priority.

Put everything in steady pop growth (by not letting unnecessary mines drag your excess-food count down. Switch to double food tiles when not making core buildings) and rapid cottage-spamming (For 8 cities I needed 13 workers. Don’t skimp on them. It’s a false economy.)

Spoiler :

My total was 68 cottages in my 7 cottage-cities. All with +100% from Mark/Groc/Bank and Wall Street as well in the capital for +200% there.

Every cottage made it to Town. Many by 1500AD.

Every Town produces 7 base commerce (with PPress and FSpeech), giving 14 gold each. 21 in the Wall Street city.

59 Towns at 14 each, plus 9 at 21 = 1015 gold/turn of the final 1629 gold/turn. But that fact that the majority of it ran from 1500AD to 1800AD, meant the Towns gave approx 55,000 of the core 86,000 as stated above.

A note on growing cottages effectively. DON’T USE FARMS IN YOUR COTTAGE CITIES.

Non-resource farms are just not necessary here (and they are much over used in general.) A reasonable city location with 2 food resources and a couple of mines will average at +4 excess-food for growth. With the compulsory Granary that +4 excess-food is enough. Just build a cottage on every double-food tile so it doesn’t drop and the +4 pop growth will keep pace with your workers.

Proof? In my 6 best cottage-cities I built one solitary non-resource farm total. That’s not 1 farm per city. 1 farm total.

By 1800AD I had 113 tiles being worked in those 6 cities with only that 1 single non-reource farm between them, and this lack of farms allowed me to build more cottages and work them constantly.

(One other cottage-city had no food resources but plenty of double-food tiles. So 3 farms on flood plains in that city brought the excess-food to a strong 5 per turn. And of course the other city was the Gr Merch city which was all farms.)

Wonders

Keep it light. Pyramids and Walls Street worked for me.

Spoiler :

I’d have liked the early wonders Oracle and Parthenon, but getting land took priority. And the expense of an early rush made it untenable.

Stonehenge is never required when dominating religion. I didn’t have to build a single Obelisk, or use libraries for culture. Religion and missionaries where enough.

Great Lighthouse obsoletes with Corporation.

I had stone so I took The Pyramids. Representations +2 happy’s, and the good supply of resources that comes with dominating the top of the map, meant that I never had to fall back on Hereditary Rule and the wasted military production it entails.

Lastly good old Wall Street. The Pyramids gave me a Gr Eng pop (grrrr) back in the early centuries. Golden Age is the worst thing that you can do with any GP. I just stored him in my capital as I felt I’d hit Liberalism and have time to jump to Corporation. Using the Gr Eng to pop this wonder saved 29 turns and paid handsome dividends.

Core buildings are a greater priority than most Wonders, which are often too expensive without the industrious trait. Here’s a great LINK and I agree with most of the scoring.

Good thing about the lack of Wonders in this challenge is that it keeps you away from random non Gr Merch's.

Civics
Beauracy is ok, but if you’ve got 68 Towns Free Speech is way better. Pacifism/Caste for Gr Merch’s. I took Representation from the Pyramids and it turned out to be very solid.


Tech Route
Focus on Bronzeworking for whip/chop > Alphabet for tech >Currency to start Markets early > COL/Phil for Gr Merch farm > CS for the solid Beauracy > Guild/Banking for Groc/Bank > Printing Press and Liberalism for the +14 gold Towns. Corporation wasn’t vital but it was so close with the free tech.

I finished there, but my Representation-specialists took me several techs further by 1800AD on 0% research.


---


Phew! Toooo many words. Here’s 2 pics.

This, I think, is the ideal city placement for the four settled western cities. Minimum water tiles. No overlap. And almost all of the double-food tiles in that corner of the continent. The pic also gives the positions for the four eastern cities that I captured. Good positions for an AI. Plenty of double-food titles again. That is where I got lucky on this attempt.

Spoiler :

And this is the expansion route I took. Capital central. Capture 4 more East and then build the remaining 3 West. blocking Saladins growth first with my first built-settler city, of course.

Spoiler :

That’s it. Early rush warmongering, but mainly peacenikery. It’s definitely a ‘cottage race’ challenge as predicted by moi.

If someone else can get more than my 68 Towns from the northern half of this continent by about 1500AD then they’ll beat me.


But as far as the Warmonger vs Peacenik debate goes I'm confident that a 90% peace strat will always beat continued agressive warmongering in a total gold challenge.


---

As stated in the spoiler I don’t think conquering every city for miles around can touch this strat. But I’m very interested to see Lilnev’s result. Good luck.



---

 

[scherbchen]

omgawdumad!

it´s a word! look it up if you don´t believe me! *pout*

 

[lilnev]

It looks like the bar has been "Raisered". So to speak. Heh.

Nice job. I *think* I can be competetive with that. We'll find out....

I'd say we have the same overall vision -- cottages trump everything, and you need land for cottages -- and some of the same tactics. The big differences are when and for how long we went to war. You started early and ended early. I started ~600 AD and will end ~1500 AD (I think I've decided not to go to war with Napoleon. I think.). If I had to guess, I'd say the optimal might be somewhere in between -- start earlier than I did, but fight longer than you did. Saladin's lands are rich enough that there must be profit in taking them. And I hope I get my money's worth out of the Romans, though I'm less sure. Time is running short.

peace,
lilnev

 

[idiot_savant]

Nice job, Raiser! I was following same strategy as you (cottages, teching), and hit 51k 1st attempt. Was going to try another, but since you beat me to it... GRATZ! Damn, I thought I was doing well by getting 1200/gpt.

3 things to back up your points:

Spoiler :

1) Diplomatic relations are key whether you use religion to do this or not (though religion clearly has a load of other benefits in this challenge ). Saladin has no issue with attacking you, even if you keep the same religion. I didn't do the best job spreading my religion cause of my Saladin attack paranoia, so didn't open borders too quickly or focus on missionaries.

<< I think your "1 religion" concept is best. Izzy gets one, so you don't even need to go there if you choose not to... btw, Saladin attacked me shortly after I got rid of Izzy. This ate up a good part of 400-500 yr production as I had to catch militarily. Noting my heavy reliance on chariots, Sally sent axeman+spearmen at me, so I needed to rush/build a good amount of axeman to counter.>>

2) GPPs are not big here, and can lead you to distraction if you don't use 1 GP farm and focus on which your buildings, etc. You can spend tons of time optimizing for GPs, etc., but there are better ways to get gold. Cottages are huge as are Merchant Specialists. Not sure whether their gp gets bonused by building, but it seems so... I used Scientists to keep my science high and lightbulb things like Education which would have slowed me, and I'm pretty sure I could have got to 80k w/o any GMs.

<< This is where Pyramids can also help as they will further drive your science. I'm not sure I agree with your overall point about wonders, but do see how wonder fever can be a diversion. >>

3) Fast teching is the biggest key after cottaging early. But if you do go super-fast tech that don't be tempted by the lure of Emancipation. If you can maintain peace, you can build your cottages early enough to get towns -- you don't need Emancipation. This slowed me down a lot in my game.

I guess it's back to the drawing board for me, and seeing how far a 3 or 4 city strategy can be pushed....

 

[Qwack]

Well done Raiser. I absolutely agree that cottages > constant warmongering and GM's for this challenge.

If I have the time, ill try to play a more optimal game as I think I can crack 100K totally peacefully(No land from AI's). I still feel that the stopping research at banking can net 90K+, problem is you have to spread religion more agressively as the chance saladin or isabella will found one of the later religions is high. If they switch around 1700, you will be fine, but earlier can become a problem.

My other theory is to send the first warrior towards saladin and choke him early(steal his first worker), try to promote to woodsman II and keep him from expanding. This can get you alot of land in the rich jungle south.

 

[Tauro]

Raiser:


!
!
!
!


Incredible score!
This is the real proof that the usual statement "cottage is all" is true

So I was wrong with my SE

 

[Meatbuster]

Methinks the provisional scoreboard could be updated?