Challenge #6: Ironman

[Raiser]

Spoiler :

1550. 1480. You guys were obviously well prepared for the millennium party. Getting Monarchy with the oracle is the way to go. Truth be told I did it as a back up plan. My original idea was to hold off Masonry and do the standard CS-slingshot but I could see it wasn't going to happen. So switched.

Why did I go for great prophet to Civil Service? Just greedy I guess. The allure of Bureaucracy was too much.

But I still maintain that if I'd secure my position at 1050AD by getting Feudalism a few turns early. Combined with the CS…. Ah well .... pipe dreams…. all is pipe dreams.


P.S. Still like this 'improvement spamming out side of the fat-cross to slow the advance' idea. Might have to try it on for size.

Welcome to the thread, Elrohir. Be sure to check out 1 or 2 of the previous challenges. When you've subjugated this one.


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[oyzar]

Spoiler :

Hah I tried the monarchy slingshot. It works great! I just got CS with the prophet and my economy is going along greatly. Heck i might even tech some more units to withstand the AI. Even got faudalism before i started teching for real. My start is a bit different than everyone else it seem. I tech animal husbandry find archery in a hut(i explained how to get it in another post. I have done it almost all starts i have done). What i did different this time i didnt realy explore and this helped tremendously In keeping the AI away for a long time. I even passed alex in points once i got monarchy from the oracle in like 1760 BC. I am not sure burecracy is worth it compared to vasalage concidering all i am producing is units... At around 300 i have about even powered units as the AI. I am beging to belive it is actually possible to win this game if i actually knew how to fight perfect. Alas i dont and i'll prolly die in a couple hundred years. The desert hill city is allways better than the on top of copper city because once they have pillaged copper you are only training longbowmen anyways. It seems like once the AI starts attacking the barbs disapear compleetly. Now if i can get to machinery before the AI kills all my infrastructure it would be great... I could not resist giving this another try seeing as i was so easily bested. The games are playing out very differently though. Last game i didnt meet toku at all while this game i havent see cesar or the mongools which played a great part in harrasing me lawst game. Heck this game alex havent attacked me (much)even.

How long is this lasting?

 

[idiot_savant]

1555, first attempt. Probably will try once more. Not sure how I did it, given I barely tech'd at all.

Spoiler :

I did Monarchy slingshot. I think the trick that helped was after I found the city spots I wanted, I stopped exploring. Played quite awhile with only Alexander against me. I built very, very few workers and very few improvements until it seemed the barbs backed off enough.

Sorry I don't have more than that. Not sure I played all that well, but just got lucky...

 

[Cabledawg]

1540 2nd attempt
This time, I moved the settler all the way over to the east coast to try and not make contact with the other civs. I didnt make another city which means I could have lasted past 1540...there was my mistake,....I thought I could make it better and tech better with 1 city.
I teched to writing to speed up all other techs, ran 2 scientist....went for monarchy , then Feudalism and then Math for the aquaduct.....didnt make it to MC before they got me. I really think i can make it too 1600 if I do the same and put up another city. I teched ok because of the gold....I also put units in the que and switched to another unit with 1 turn to go so I wouldnt have to pay the maintenance, then when I needed them, I popped them out every turn....that worked really well.

 

[Raiser]

How long is this lasting?

Good question.

Last date for entries onto the official (informal, is probably a better word) leader board is Sunday 22nd October. Posted saves after this date are still welcome. There are just not put on the leader board.

Discussion on the next challenge Monday 23rd-Thursday 26th. [But let's not start that heated debate before the Ironman chat has run dry. ]

Winner has the option of sifting through the challenge nominations and posting a 4000BC save for his/her favourite on Friday 27th October.


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lilnev will update the leader board tomorrow when he gets back from the world.

At a quick glance it looks like the top three places at this point are:
Idiot Savant....1555AD
Scherbchen.....1550AD
Janus0............1540AD
Cabledawg.......1540AD (but no save posted)

I'm sensing a theme here.

Congrats Idiot Savant.


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Spoiler :

I also put units in the que and switched to another unit with 1 turn to go so I wouldnt have to pay the maintenance, then when I needed them, I popped them out every turn....that worked really well.

Ow, I forgot that one. Like it. Ever penny counts to stop the nasty unit deletions.

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[VoiceOfUnreason]

1330. OK, I've still got a ways to go; still making progress though....

Spoiler :

In this game I ran two cities on the river hills, until the second city became non viable, at which point I whipped it down to pop one, then abandoned it. This city I settled next to the copper, rather than on it - the fog busters give me the time I need to work the mine.

Vassalage. Heh - there's no such thing as a high maintenance tech when running only one city.

Once the party starts, Axes are basically worthless - any left over you might as well abandon.

Cycling your defenders is imperative - there's a period in the AI assault where the defending longbows have a significant advantage - you need to use this period to get lots of units up to level 5, rather than taking one unit up to level 8. One of the tricks from Epic 4 was to first promote along Guerilla, so that when you hit level 10 you could park on a hill somewhere, and let the next defender take a turn.

 

[scherbchen]

good point about cycling units.

 

[Cabledawg]

1540 Defeat...3rd attempt
I told myself I wasnt gonna waste more time on this....and then I thought....surely I can do better than 1540 from my last try......ecspecially since I know where all the huts are.

I made a pattern for the goody huts where I could get 7 without making contact with any civs. Worked well and popped a Archery, fishing scouts and money.

Settled again on the east coast picking up gold, fish and iron. Went warrior, workboat, archer, archer worker. I built a settler after the first barb horde slowed and put him north at the clams. I wanted a second city to still stay away from making contact.

Teched to writing for library, IW, Feud, Math, MetalCasting, then turned off research and pumped out longbows,

My first contact wasnt until 1270...nice huh? I thought I had this puppy in the bag. When I got attacked, I had 25 longbowmen in the capitol along with a smattering of others. 1540 came and I lost....unreal. I did better this time, but lost at the same time.

 

[Zaldron]

I've been settling the hill 2E1S of the start for more floodplains. Then I run scientists and the farms can be rebuilt easily with a couple workers, unlike cottages that require time to develop. I drop my second city right on top of the copper, so the two cities are connected by unpillagable river to give them both copper. I'd developed all the way up to feudalism but the hordes of enemy troops finally took down all my CG3 longbows in 1290AD.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

OK, I'm going to throw it in. I played my best game thus far, and fell backwards to 1290. No, of course not - there are a few obvious errors to correct; I'll probably take one of my midgame saves and start from there.

So what did we learn about promotions today, class?

Spoiler :

Starting with Guerilla I and II has a side benefit, that when you step your archers out of the city, on the return trip you still have a movement point - you can return to the city and attack, if need be. CG I, II, III are next. Don't touch drill - the idea is good, but the execution is wrong. Instead, look towards Combat, and maybe a specialization.

You'll also want some offensive pieces. Don't forget that if you are dealing with the river, Combat II unlocks Amphibious.

OK, you're under promoted archers need some time on the front lines too - just make sure that you have enough of them, AND that they've got their 25% fortification bonus before you pull the A squad.

 

[carl corey]

My first try went better than I expected. History ended in 1170AD, but I have a few tricks left to try. I've just read the things you guys posted and some of them came to me during the game. Another try coming up soon.

 

[patagonia]

1605 AD

That was utterly exhausting!

Spoiler :

I settled in place and decided to go OCC this time around ignoring copper and horses and instead decided to pursue an Oracle-Monarchy gambit to try and open up Feudalism ASAP for Vassalage and Longbows, which fortunately came online just as the combined AI assult got underway.

After that, it was a case of stockpiling as many longbows as possible until the AI either advanced sufficiently to render them ineffective or sheer weight of numbers got the better of them. As an indication of how heavy the attacks were and how awesome a defensive unit longbows are for the majority of the game, I had one unit up to level 11 at about 120XP before it finally died and many others survived up to level 7/8.

The longbow's window of usefulness extended throughout the game, even coping well against knights and grenadiers, but in the end there were just too many enemy units and no opportunity to heal.

For anyone that's interested, here are the kill stats from the end of the game:

Spoiler :

Catapult = 133
Horse Archer = 95
Knight = 69
War Elephant = 62
Axeman = 42
Archer = 31
Crossbowman = 31
Jaguar = 29
Spearman = 28
Musketman = 28
Warrior = 25
Swordsman = 17
Grenadier = 15
Maceman = 11
Pikeman = 11
Chariot = 6
Praetorian = 3
Longbowman = 3
Samurai = 2
Animals = 4

Total = 645

 

[Cabledawg]

1755.....my 4th try
Ill post the save and my more clever strategy later...Im late for a meeting.....It was a better game than my previous tries.

 

[Raiser]

1755! without out reloading one of your earlier attempts, that's amazing. Well done.

I bet patagonia is gutted after all his hard work. 645 units killed!!


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[oyzar]

1665 AD this time.

Spoiler :

Did the monarchy slingshot got vasalage. And then the mistake happened instead of starting to hoard mad gold for preperation of keeping an enourmous army i startted teching and fast got code of laws prophet for civil service ironworking metal casting machinery matematics construction... This ment that when the ai finaly broke thourgh and started pillaging around 1600 it didnt take long before all my units went on a strike and i lost 10-20 units from this. Otherwise i am sure my capital could have held a great deal longer. Oh well you live and you learn as they say. I am way to competetive for my own good, someone stop me from trying again please. I thought i was doing well until i saw the 1755 guy... At least i will be in the lead untill he posts his save oh well. condrats Another mistake i did was I got myself another city by the sea which ate up alot of gold but never realy contributed anything(cept iron which i didnt even need for macemen). So all in all i am sure i could have made it into the 1800's if i had tried a bit harder. 30 Longbowmen can hodl a city goddamnawfull long. Now if cabledawg post some new awesome strategy i mgith have to try that

Fun challenge and i def learned alot. Though most of it is only applicable when losing, i still have no clue how to compleetly turn it around.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

A stupid question (and only related to this thread because wanting to play this game brought it up), but does anybody know how to open a vanilla save with warlords installed ? I tried using the original Civ IV disk, but an error message came up when the game tried to open the save.

 

[scherbchen]

wow, great job to those to break the 1600 mark! and i thought i was doing so well

@ shoot the moon: i do not think that is possible, you might try to rename your vanilla file to a warlords extension... but that file will have no info on great general points, unique buildings that have been built (like the replacements for monuments or granaries) or the new wonders so it most likely will not work i assume. but i´m really bad at things like that myself so take the above with a grain of salt, just bits from what i picked up here on the forums.

 

[Raiser]

A stupid question (and only related to this thread because wanting to play this game brought it up), but does anybody know how to open a vanilla save with warlords installed ? I tried using the original Civ IV disk, but an error message came up when the game tried to open the save.

Not sure I get you?

I have Warlords and Vanilla installed and if I want to play a vanilla save you just stick in disk and make sure I click the vanilla shortcut. I keep clicking the warlords shortcut accidentally when i've got this challenge to try. Just can't get out of the habit. No matter how many times I do it.

What's the error message say?



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[cabert]

1040 AD for my second try.
Fogbusting makes a real difference
moves (I used a GS to build an academy! At a moment when I lost money at 0% research!) and suiciding units when I got tired let me think I can do better

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

Heh, I was proud that I made it to 1480.

Spoiler :

Turn 8, 3680BC: Archery!
Turn 15, 3400BC: Mining!
Turn 27, 2920BC: Bronze Working!
Turn 34, 2640BC: Mysticism!
Turn 43, 2280BC: Meditation!
Turn 48, 2080BC: Pasargadae founded
Turn 49, 2040BC: Priesthood!
Turn 57, 1720BC: The Wheel!
Turn 63, 1480BC: Monarchy! (Oracle)
Turn 67, 1320BC: Pottery!
Turn 78, 925BC: Writing!
Turn 100, 375BC: Moses born (settled)
Turn 108, 175BC: Feudalism!
Turn 117, 50AD: Code of Laws! (yup, scoring the religion)
Turn 119, 100AD: Masonry!
Turn 121, 150AD: Animal Husbandry!
Turn 129, 350AD: Horseback Riding!
Turn 208, 1480AD: In pacem requiscat

The opening huts give me a 45g, a map, and two scouts. These, plus the initial warrior build, serve as fog busters, completely covering the north and north east. I generally have time to later bust the east as well, but this time around it slipped past my attention, and the barbs put a city out there.

Everything is running full growth to get the archer built. I've got one turn left over, so that gets dumped into a barracks, then build the first worker, and pop rush a second. More archer while growing back to size four and farming the floods, then a settler. A couple of chops are timed to go with the city on the copper, producing an axeman immediately. He gets to play in the middle keeping things safe while the workers chop out the Oracle.

The wheel may be inaccurate is it more important to get the library up, or the cottages on the ground? I certainly erred by not building a second library in Pasargadae. Meanwhile, everything gets cottaged over.

Now what? Things seemed to be going well - so I could have pushed on, I suppose; I'm pulling about 50 commerce per turn. Code of laws was a lark - grab the religion and speed up the second priest, but that wasn't going anywhere really. Masonry to get some walls up, but that hardly matters when the catapults are buried in the stack.

Horseback riding was somewhat useful. I trained a settler, dropped a city on the horses; everybody builds Immortals for a bit (though I forgot to get them all upgraded to horse archers before abandoning the city). The point here is that I had gotten tired of peeling away a stack only to leave a dangling catapult at the bottom... I can't affort to be trading units one for one. So the horse archers get cleanup detail (a point I missed - save a promotion for Pinch). Hooray for two movement points.