Challenge #6: Ironman

[Cabledawg]

I just got home and after I figure out how to load a save....thats why I didnt load the last attempts.....Ill post it, maybe with a screenie showing the final battle of Riflemen vs my longbows. I think I can have the 1755 save up in 30 mins.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

Strange. I tried downloading the save again. And the new downlad WORKED. Strange, just strange. On to playing.

 

[Cabledawg]

Hopefully this is the save. Ill post Info and pics next. One question. From this same game, I have a save from 1695AD. Can I start from that save, and if I do better, submit again?

 

[Cabledawg]

Heres some Pics. The first shows my 2 city positions and the second is the final battle.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

An interesting trend in Feudalism research dates...

Spoiler :

VoiceOfUnreason, 175BC, RIP 1480

Patagonia, 425AD, RIP 1605

Cabledawg, 680AD, RIP 1755


No the trend doesn't hold when looking at other games. I just found it amusing.

 

[Cabledawg]

How about this for amusing......or just my stupidity. I looked at my 1695 and 1535 save more carefully just to see if there was anything else i could do when I came across a huge mistake I made.
Look carefully at my first picture...what do you see....Longbowmen with 1 promotion. Yup, Im an idiot. When I got Longbowmen, I was so engrossed in the battle, I never switched to Vassalage. Doh!!!
So I played the 1695 and the 1535 save TWICE to see if I could better my 1755 date. You would think with switching to vassalage now and 2 promotions, I could easily do better.....nope.
I cant figure out why I cant do better with the extra promotion. Im including the 1535 and 1695 save. Maybe someone else can tell me why Im doing worse with the extra promotions.
In case youre wondering why my 2 cities were way over there...it was to delay contact for as long as possible. I could only do one attachment.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

How about this for amusing......or just my stupidity. I looked at my 1695 and 1535 save more carefully just to see if there was anything else i could do when I came across a huge mistake I made... I never switched to Vassalage. Doh!!!

Several times I found myself thinking "wow, those workers sure are improving things in a hurry..." This beer's for you, Mr. Civics Advisory Man!

 

[oyzar]

It might be because of the lower income...

 

[Raiser]

Hopefully this is the save. Ill post Info and pics next. One question. From this same game, I have a save from 1695AD. Can I start from that save, and if I do better, submit again?

You can do what you like just for fun and as a learning experience. But as a valid save for wining the challenge - no, 'fraid not.

If you check the rules in the first post you'll see it sorta says 'no picking a good spot and trying again.'

In this competition (unlike HoF or GotM), you may restart from the beginning and replay the game as many times as you like. You may not replay from later saves, of course.

That's why it's a courtesy to the other players to post the save after each attempt. Then it's clear from the log that the dates of wonders and religions being founded are different.



---

 

[patagonia]

It's interesting to see some of the different approaches on here. A few random musings:

Spoiler :

Does anyone think that trying to build an economy produces any long-term benefits? Is there a benefit in trying to keep the AI stacks away from your cities initially, or is it more economical in terms of effort and xp gained to let them die at the city walls?

Is there any point teching beyond Feudalism when the "free" extra promotion from Vassalage looks superficially more valuabe than the Bureaucracy bonus? With bureaucracy, you could theoretically produce and support more units, albeit of slightly lesser quality initially - then again, units fresh from a barracks are only one "win" away from promotion in vanilla anyway.

On the question of being able to support more units, Bureaucracy gives the capital a 50% bonus to commerce, which at 100% tax means a minimum of 5 gpt. However, the civic information for Vassalage says it gives more free units, so assuming you pop a GP for civil service and bureaucracy rather than settling one and using vassalage, is there likely to be any tangible benefit in army size one way or the other?

 

[scherbchen]

regarding the first question

Spoiler :

i think with 3 possible wineries you basically HAVE an economy. adding some cottages for maybe 3 centuries is going to make a bit of a differnce, sure. but does that offset the production value of farmed floodplains for whipping and/or mining? i doubt it but then again i am very bad at these micromanagement decisions and go with my gut feeling on those.

another question: what to do with those great prophets? i basically settled both because i thought the extra and would benefit me, a mini-bureocracy if you will. i already researched masonry and i was unsure if i could get CS with any of them, so that´s basically ignorance kicking my behind there.

and:

Spoiler :

won´t teching to engineering be a big help vs those lategame elephants and cavalry? more than bureo? i couldn´t get there due to having no economy (kind of devaluating my answer to your question) but i think that might be the one thing that would eke out some more turns. gonna try that later

 

[oyzar]

Spoiler :

Problem with pikemen is they dont get the city garrison bonus so longbowmen are soon just as good. I think any teching beyond Vassalage wont work out very well. I got burecracy AND machinery and longbowmen are still head and shoulders above macemen. I am wondering why i never saw any grenadiers. Your micromanagement decisions have a very big inpact on gameplay. Sending your scout one way will trigger an entirly different game for example as seen on all the various replays. In none of my games did alexander die for example and i never saw any grenadiers. I think trying out all the different ways to go might be beneficial(heck you might even hutpop monarchy and vassalage with enough tries. As it is I am pretty happy with pop 144 gc archery and mysticism I get from my start pattern). I did cottage all the floodplains and a bit more. It made me have a realy nice income in the midgame. Of course all i did with it was teching which was pretty useless. Would have been much better to save up a couple K's gc to suport 30+ longbowmen in your capital for an extended period of time. Tell me if you want the archery/mysticism + 144 gc(+ extra scout from starting hut walkthrough)

 

[scherbchen]

i give up, 1550 is a date i can apparently not even come close to in retries. i can not even pin down what i am doing wrong now, but i´m sick of loosing 97.4% odds battles and alex finding me in 3400 BC in one go and 2 millenia later in another.

definitely a fun challenge! but without any good hints i am spent on this one, it is -i am afraid to say- just too much of an uphill battle for me. getting bombarded by umpteen cats near the end and not really having an option to tech anywhere beyond longbowmen is kinda frustrating. i realise that engineering is so far out of my reach it´s not even funny anymore (even though ozy advises against it, it was my last glimmer of hope shining beyond yonder horizon).

maybe i am just too set in my ways, but i just can not adapt enough to this challenge to give this more tries. looking forward to some hints after this challenge ends to make me see the light though

 

[idiot_savant]

Spoiler :

Anyone try teching to Theology for Theocracy and a religion? In my two attempts and looking at the saves, the AI never seems to go in that direction. 9 XP from the beginning would be pretty nice.

It seems like that would be faster and more helpful than trying to get Engineering which requires a lot of bulbs.

 

[VoiceOfUnreason]

In reply to idiot_savant:

Spoiler :

Have you really had trouble getting those extra two XP on this scenario? I've been short metals, and health, and happiness, but boy oh boy have XP been in abundance.

 

[Shoot the Moon]

First attempt: bad dice role in 450 B.C. killed me.
Second attempt: Popped 3 techs from huts (on Immortal ).

Spoiler :

Decided to try a feudalism slingshot. Forgot writing was a prerequiset. That ruined that game.

 

[Zaimejs]

Wow.. that was fun, but I'm pretty awful. Could hardly even get a second city started... no bronze... almost close to horses. I'm sitting at 107 while Tokugawa is raping me with swordsman at 733. No iron. No bronze. Just archers... lost my capital. It's only a matter of time. 150 BC. Not even going to be the jesus.


I'm still trying to figure out how other civs expanded with those barbarians? I put a worker out with two guards, and he lasted two turns. Never even built the farm. How can they hold onto mines and whatnot with that kind of barrage? Or did I just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?

 

[Meatbuster]

AI civs get bonuses vs barbarians at higher levels. You can't expect barbs to slow them down too much, unfortunately.

 

[idiot_savant]

To Voice of Unreason's post:

Spoiler :

Not really... but the xp does seem to focus into a few units due to how the combat system works. In addition, it seems like the AI spends a decent amount of time building armies, so that in each of my games there was a definite lull in the attacks. The units I have produced during that time seem to be fine until I get hit by multiple stacks like Cabledawg posted... Once the AI breaks through those first few units, it's all downhill quickly.

Doesn't seem to be a trend I guess... but would have helped me somewhat. Plus Theology (600 or so less than Engineering when you count Monotheism) seems a lot more in reach than Engineering... I'm going to try once more and see if units starting at 9 xp make a big difference.

I've also noticed that territory is really hard to defend. Has anyone tried Construction and trying to build a ring around your improvements. With the oceans it seems like that might help... But I'm probably just grasping at straws...

 

[cabert]

i give up, 1550 is a date i can apparently not even come close to in retries. i can not even pin down what i am doing wrong now, but i´m sick of loosing 97.4% odds battles and alex finding me in 3400 BC in one go and 2 millenia later in another.

definitely a fun challenge! but without any good hints i am spent on this one, it is -i am afraid to say- just too much of an uphill battle for me. getting bombarded by umpteen cats near the end and not really having an option to tech anywhere beyond longbowmen is kinda frustrating. i realise that engineering is so far out of my reach it´s not even funny anymore (even though ozy advises against it, it was my last glimmer of hope shining beyond yonder horizon).

maybe i am just too set in my ways, but i just can not adapt enough to this challenge to give this more tries. looking forward to some hints after this challenge ends to make me see the light though

a few hints, on things I tried:

Spoiler :

- fogbusting with immortals (sentry promotion) works pretty well
- conquering some Barb cities is easy with a lot of immortals.
- cut all the woods around you cities (barbs do attack blindly, but AIs mass on those woods, and it's painful)
- more cities = less barbs, but more AIs attacks.
- If you manage to fogbust enough, you can have cottages working + bronze.
- If you build enough workers, you can have the oracle in the second city = more culture = better defense.
- monarchy really is making a big difference.
- catapults make a difference but not enough (got construction at the cost of monarchy obviously)
- I tried a feodalism slingshot, but missed the oracle = seems impossible.
- If I manage both a oracle monarchy, and a settler rush to the bronze, I should be able to attack with immortals and axes (at a time when the AIs have riflemen probably )

a few ideas i'd like to try :

Spoiler :

- moving around the first settler, i moved him SE (another hill!) already, but going on the coast could be nice
- going crazy with scouts/warriors for fogbusting
- going crazy with scientists for lightbulbing techs
- trying to grab ivory with the first/second settler
- mining more to pop ressources (did pop gold in one try, but it was th game where i tried construction = no good)