Challenge-II-06

[cas]

I would use a Big_and_Small Map and its huge amounts of Seafood to utilize Sid's Sushi to maximize the number of Scientists that can be supported. Also, be sure to get a National Park built with 12-20 Forests/Jungles for the free Specialist per Forest Preserve it provides. Running Environmentalism will also allow 4 Commerce per turn on Forest Preserves and more on Windmills, but its probably too expensive for larger Empires.

Sun Tzu Wu

With a smaller empire...just enough cities for Oxford...would you still use B&S ? I don't know if I'll have enough seafood with a small number of cities to make B&S worth it.

IIRC most of the seafood was around the island chains and off the main land in B&S. I don't play that map a lot due to easy GLight cheese. Although GLight cheese might be helpful on imm/deity which is above my emp skills.

cas

 

[thbrown81]

I just lost a Prince game to Mansa Musa by TWO FREAKING TURNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I had the Space Elevator and he still managed to beat me! He snuck on me and launched with one engine. My entire afternoon and evening just went up in smoke. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[thbrown81]

OK, I had to get that out of my system. The good news is that I at least learned quite a bit from thus EPIC FAIL. My plan was to use a Terra map, rush one opponent right away to get a population lead, then beat everyone to Astronomy and the New World, populate it before anyone else got there and snatch up lots of nice resources, run State Property and then tech away without having to worry about much military. I also added Frederick, Gandhi and Lincoln into the mix to cramp things a little more in the Old World and push the tech pace a little more.

I think the plan was sound, but poorly executed. I was crammed onto an isthmus between Lincoln and Gandhi, went for Lincoln on the early rush since he was closer and blocking more expansion. I didn't build up enough to CK him, and then the AP voted back one of the cities I took. ARGH! I did make it to NW first, but lacked enough production from OW cities to make a big push. Mansa Musa had expanded quite a bit in the OW, and was able to take up 1/2 the NW as well, which I assume enabled him to run me down even without the Space Elevator.

Despite playing Civ for many years, I never played a focused game with a specific VC in mind until discovering Civfanatics last year, so my middle and end game is very sloppy. I discovered Rocketry without getting Industrialism first, only to discover that I had no Aluminum popped for the production bonus, wasting precious hammers.

On a positive note, this was the first time that I tapped into the power of the National Park/ Iron Works combo. HOLY CRAP, that's a lot of hammers. It worked particularly well in a New World city, since I was able to find a corn/ pig/ copper BFC with six forest tiles. I was running six engineers plus a free IP engineer and two settled GEs, pushing out 120 hammers (didn't even get to a power plant).

Anyway, was the Terra map just a bad idea? I think that if I had expanded peacefully and not wasted the hammers on an early war, I would have been able to get a much bigger foothold in the New World.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

With a smaller empire...just enough cities for Oxford...would you still use B&S ? I don't know if I'll have enough seafood with a small number of cities to make B&S worth it.

Yes, absolutely. The AIs should be willing to trade all their exceed Rice and Seafood, as long as one doesn't do something bone-head and spread Sid's Sushi to an AI's City.

IIRC most of the seafood was around the island chains and off the main land in B&S. I don't play that map a lot due to easy GLight cheese. Although GLight cheese might be helpful on imm/deity which is above my emp skills.

Why not use every advantage one can? You should use every bit of cheese you can find. Real Leaders of Civilizations used every advantage they were aware of and some they weren't aware of. Why should anyone play Civilization, avoiding easy solutions to problems. As long as its not an exploit as determined by the HOF staff (ask first when in doubt), it is absolutely fair to use.

BTW, I've never used The Great Lighthouse. There are better ways of getting Tons of Commerce in my opinion.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

OK, I had to get that out of my system. The good news is that I at least learned quite a bit from thus EPIC FAIL. My plan was to use a Terra map, rush one opponent right away to get a population lead, then beat everyone to Astronomy and the New World, populate it before anyone else got there and snatch up lots of nice resources, run State Property and then tech away without having to worry about much military. I also added Frederick, Gandhi and Lincoln into the mix to cramp things a little more in the Old World and push the tech pace a little more.

I think the plan was sound, but poorly executed. I was crammed onto an isthmus between Lincoln and Gandhi, went for Lincoln on the early rush since he was closer and blocking more expansion. I didn't build up enough to CK him, and then the AP voted back one of the cities I took. ARGH! I did make it to NW first, but lacked enough production from OW cities to make a big push. Mansa Musa had expanded quite a bit in the OW, and was able to take up 1/2 the NW as well, which I assume enabled him to run me down even without the Space Elevator.

Despite playing Civ for many years, I never played a focused game with a specific VC in mind until discovering Civfanatics last year, so my middle and end game is very sloppy. I discovered Rocketry without getting Industrialism first, only to discover that I had no Aluminum popped for the production bonus, wasting precious hammers.

On a positive note, this was the first time that I tapped into the power of the National Park/ Iron Works combo. HOLY CRAP, that's a lot of hammers. It worked particularly well in a New World city, since I was able to find a corn/ pig/ copper BFC with six forest tiles. I was running six engineers plus a free IP engineer and two settled GEs, pushing out 120 hammers (didn't even get to a power plant).

Anyway, was the Terra map just a bad idea? I think that if I had expanded peacefully and not wasted the hammers on an early war, I would have been able to get a much bigger foothold in the New World.

No, its not a bad idea. You lost by 2 turns. You should be able to Win by a much larger margin. Just remember to do whatever will shorten the number of turns to your Win the most at any given point in the Game. Don't get distracted by anything that doesn't reduce (or at least doesn't increase) the Win Date.

However, I would suggest Big and Small, Civil Service -> Bureaucracy, 5 City Empire -> Oxford University, National Park with maximum Forest/Jungle Preserves and trade for Sid's Sushi Resources.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[Dynamic]

...Mansa Musa had expanded quite a bit in the OW, and was able to take up 1/2 the NW as well, which I assume enabled him to run me down even without the Space Elevator.

Space Elevator is totally useless for the most of combinations of Levels, Speeds and Map sizes.

On a positive note, this was the first time that I tapped into the power of the National Park/ Iron Works combo.

Wrong decision - NP disconnects Coal and decreases Iron Works effect by 50%.

 

[thbrown81]

Space Elevator is totally useless for the most of combinations of Levels, Speeds and Map sizes.


Wrong decision - NP disconnects Coal and decreases Iron Works effect by 50%.

I guess I didn't mention that I didn't have access to coal until the last 25 turns or so when someone finally traded it to me for uranium. Although admittedly, I hadn't thought of the loss of production from coal, I was just looking for a way to maximize the # of available engineers. Forge + factory + IP only gives me five, and with the IW and NP with six forest tiles I was running 8 or 9 I think (which probably was less output than the 50% from coal, if I had had it).

Re: Space Elevator, what makes it a waste? It seems like that hammers needed to build it are a fraction of the hammers saved building space ship parts. I haven't done the exact math, so obviously I'm just estimating and could be wrong.

 

[Dynamic]

Re: Space Elevator, what makes it a waste? It seems like that hammers needed to build it are a fraction of the hammers saved building space ship parts. I haven't done the exact math, so obviously I'm just estimating and could be wrong.

You need to research expensive tech Robotics and spend time or GEs for building Space Elevator. And when you will get SE, you would already research all space techs and should launch SS but not start building parts.

P.S. And SE add just 50% hammer bonus when all parts are building with 250-450% so common effect is just 10-20%.

 

[thbrown81]

OK, I did much better with a peaceful expansion (still using the Terra Map) and was able to establish a sizeable land and population lead, which lead to lots of beakers & hammers. I almost ended up with an HOF table listing, finishing in 1933, which is #2 for Prince/ Epic/ Small/ SR! Thanks for the advice!

 

[kcd_swede]

OK, submitted a victory and now the wait to see if its accepted for the challenge.

I lost (or retired, rather) twice before getting the win.

What I learned: don't try to axe-rush Wang. Peace is the way.

Due to the way regens work (and that's what mapfinder automates), I always shared continent with Korea and Mali; and started with at least 2 food and 2 floodplains and one gold or gems in the start.

With Mansa around, its not so hard to maintain tech parity.

I did not have stone, so no pyramids... No Oracle, no CS sling. 900AD is first time I get to Bur. About 1300AD is when I move up from Hered Rule. I did have the GLib, which was ok, but not as nice as with pyramids. So I played a cottage spamming peaceful game, with Wang and Mansa and I all being Hindu. I won Liberalism race (930AD) and took Astronomy to get all the trade routes from the other continent (not to mention another monopoly round of trading to keep me ahead of Mansa). Circumnav in about 900AD. Oxford about 1000AD.

Around this time I plan the backstab of Wang, because I have rifles and he doesn't even have muskets yet. Messed up the diplo (should have gotten forced peace or gotten Mansa in the war too), so Wang bribed Mansa to join. Mansa and I traded a pair of cities, and then I gave him another for peace to speed the mop-up of Korea. Now my size is a big advantage, and by taking Korea I have won the Statue of Liberty and Versailles, which help things along a bit.

From rifling I went the industrialism path to reveal aluminum. I saw that Mansa was going to get Legendary before I could launch, so I went up the military branch of the tree. Spammed tanks with plan to raze near legend cities... but they were sooooo nice and filled with non-obsolete wonders (Cristo R, Hollyw, R+R and much more) that I decided to keep them. Mansa had an air force but nothing worse than Inf, and not many of those. I pillaged his oil right away, of course, and he never got that tile back. I had a chance to wipe out his entire 20-unit air force on the war's 3rd turn, but lost the last battle at 60% odds, and he moved them out of harms way... to remain not much more than a little annoyance since I had Sam Inf and he was afraid to take them on (but it did slow movement of units to let sam inf keep up).

Peace after taking all 3 legends. Std Eth and Mining Inc were used in my best science and prod cities respectively. 3 Gorge dam built. After launching (AI just about to get plastics, W Orange about 60 turns from 3 legends), I used modern armor and eliminate Mansa from my continent (he had 3 island cities left I could be bothererd to take), and W Orange wiped Wangs last 2-pop island city off the map.

....

Note, I played this one again (sort of in parallel on a different computer... very confusing) and had stone, built 'mids and GLib, got CS-sling from Oracle. Worker stole from Wang very early. But I let Mansa talk me into war with Wang before I was ready, and stalled after taking 2 cities when he got Grens. I was also maybe slow to get ready for war, not being in right civics and such. At that time (about 1400AD) it started looking like it would take me longer than 1894AD to get a space race, so I just beelined Mass Media, built UN with 0% Research, and gold-rushed it for 9072 gold after about 10 turns of building the regular way. (Mansa gave me Mass Media for Biology after I put 2 turns research into it, saving me 4 turns. Diplo victory 1700AD .. justr thought it would be tooo tedious to have a another late game war). I do not know how to get to space on this level without at least two wars... one for early land advantage, and one for stomping down the AI who try to sneak some other kind of victory.

I really envy those folks who can get a space victory in 1400's before AI have a chance to make trouble.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

OK, submitted a victory and now the wait to see if its accepted for the challenge.

Definitely accepted.

Very nice Immortal Victory! Very nice showing in the rankings, before the Difficulty adjustment!

Great write-up! Thanks.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[kcd_swede]

Definitely accepted.

Very nice Immortal Victory! Very nice showing in the rankings, before the Difficulty adjustment!

Great write-up! Thanks.

Sun Tzu Wu

Thanks! After this game I am forced to question my standard space race strategy involving Pyramids/GLib and Oracle CS-sling (developed during Monarch level play, mostly). If I rely too much on early specialist economy without enough care for growing cottages, it ends up costing me years by the end of the game. If I work so hard to get a CS-sling at a high difficulty level that I lose chance to get the best city sites peacefully, then it hurts more than helps finish date. Also, at Immortal level there are obvious advantages to using HR for happieness, as it gives you a lot more (military) options, since you don't have to build everything from scratch if you find yourself at war.

But maybe the most important thing where I get my fastest space wins is when I have fast and efficient war that yield good mature cities - and that means managing the diplo so the only wars I get are the ones I want. Its a lot to keep track of, which is why it remains a fun game to play after so many years.

But to be honest... in this game I was going for any space victory, rather than fast. I even delayed launch 3 turns for the 2nd engine to complete... I wanted to see how many travel turns an extra engine cuts off. (Answer, it saves 3 turns of SS travel at Epic speed). So I broke even... but it could have been really damaging if another part got sabotaged during those 3 extra build turns.

 

[AgedOne]

I haven't succeeded yet at this game, and I do believe that space colony games are the most complete of the victory types. Here's what happened in my best attempt so far:

I had chosen a Big & Small map, and added 2 civs - Roosevelt and Joao.
I started at an interesting spot beside 2 gold, but with fresh water to my north and ocean to my south east and south west. No sea-food though, and my only food source was a single corn tile. On the plus side, I was able to settle on a plains hill with freshwater access.
My location was fairly central, in the northern half of the big continent. Joao to the west (and the north - he didn't mind settling the tundra), Wang further west. Liz south west. Willem east. Mansa south (slightly east). Roose north east.

Spent the early stages trying not to get boxed in by the expansion-minded Joao. Managing to keep Willem over his side of a choke point, and trying to claim central southern land before Mansa or Liz got there. All the while aware of the need to set a high tech pace.

The tech went very well. Helped by an Oracle slingshot to Civil Service, though how I got it as late as turn 96 I cannot understand! I also bulbed Philosophy about 15 turns later, setting me up nicely.

The Gt Library was my only other early wonder, in 290BC.

My science was good enough that I was able to take Astronomy from Liberalism in 100AD. At this point my empire of 4 cities looked a little small. Worryingly, I had just been declared on by Willem, but it turned out he sent only a tiny contingent to attack me, and he was easily dealt with.

However, this was enough to fix in my mind the idea that I could eliminate my neighbour and take his cities, if only I could get a decisive military tech advantage. It was looking promising, as he was still very backward (maces, cats, archers) as I was researching gunpowder. I decided to power ahead to Riflemen and Cannon - and then take him.

It was during this research spell that Mansa decided to try his luck attacking me also. His attempt, however, was pitiful (2 mounted units) and brushed aside without pausing for breath.

Finally, by 1285 I had both steel and rifling, engaged a few good military civics and started ramping up!
I declared in 1335, and knew full well that Willem had not progressed beyond longbows and elephants. It was a satisfying war, that had reduced him to a single isolated city by 1465 (so that was about 25 turns and netted his whole heartlands and 6 well-developed cities). I took his final city about 10 turns later, eliminating him from the game and any 'we love our motherland' unhappiness. I promptly presented this city to Liz, as it was in her lands and would have been an overhead to look after. It made her happy.

My biggest regret is that I didn't have 5 good productive cities that could churn out universities for me at an earlier stage. Since I had education back in 155BC, you would have expected me to be building Oxford shortly into AD, but no. It was 1580AD before I got the 5th university up, and Oxford was built between 1685 and 1716. This is basically too late to be useful.

On the science progress front, I succeeded in being first to Physics (1070AD), but lost out on the Statue of Liberty, Eiffel Tower, Cristo Redentor which were my attempts to generate Gt Merchants and Gt Engineers for founding Sid's Sushi and Mining Inc. I managed to get neither of these, which I think is another reason for my ultimate failure.

In the end, the attempt fell the way many of my previous attempts at space on the higher levels have fallen. I watched a good tech lead evaporate in the later stages, and although I gave it my best shot, had to watch Joao launch his ship a few turns before me. It might have been closer, but the little rat had a huge espionage lead over me (something like 50,000 to 5,000) which he used to destroy completed spaceship parts in my cities.

I would have to say, also, that it was about 1920AD when he launched, and if I wasn't already on Alpha Centauri with a drink in my hand by that date, then I have nobody to blame but myself!

The attempts will continue.

 

[Dynamic]

Nice writeup, AgedOne. What level was it?
I'm in final stage of Prince level try - it will be pre-1500AD finish on the Rain Forest map.
Your main mistake is too few cities. Small map size isn't really small - just select maps were you can found 5-8 cities without wars and you can choose the moment of starting fight (early or after Oxford).

 

[AgedOne]

Nice writeup, AgedOne. What level was it?

I'm hoping for a better one when I manage to crack this one.
The level is Emperor. I'm hoping to play all of these second Challenge series at Emperor - except game 1! I'll be more than impressed if anyone wins that one on Monarch, let alone something higher. Not sure what level I'll take a poke at that one on. Warlord, maybe...

I'm in final stage of Prince level try - it will be pre-1500AD finish on the Rain Forest map.
Your main mistake is too few cities. Small map size isn't really small - just select maps were you can found 5-8 cities without wars and you can choose the moment of starting fight (early or after Oxford).

Well, that's interesting to hear you say that. I'm playing another attempt and have mapped out locations for 6 cities after my initial recce that I'm confident on achieving. Whether I go for a war after that will depend on a lot of things I don't know yet.
I felt that the biggest factors in my defeat last time were (a) not getting Oxford in about 500AD like I should have - and (b) never popping the Gt Merchant for Sushi and the Gt Eng for Mining Co. I'm interested to hear if others agree or disagree.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

I haven't succeeded yet at this game, and I do believe that space colony games are the most complete of the victory types. Here's what happened in my best attempt so far:
...

Thanks for the write-up. Your failures are a far more interesting read than most Player's successes.

Hope you have success to report next time you post here.

Sun Tzu Wu

 

[kcd_swede]

I felt that the biggest factors in my defeat last time were (a) not getting Oxford in about 500AD like I should have - and (b) never popping the Gt Merchant for Sushi and the Gt Eng for Mining Co. I'm interested to hear if others agree or disagree.

(a) Yep, earliest possible Oxford is key. I like to be in Slavery and whip the crap out of cities to get universities asap... feels like I whip too much sometimes (4 or 5-pop whips are a bit excessive, or no?) but they grow back. OR bonus helps, too, if the diplo situation allows. But if you got the Pyramids, then USuff gold rush them tends to be very effective.
(b) Not the way I play. I almost never use Sushi unless on an archipelago, though I don't play big/small much maybe its good there, too. Mining Inc is good if you got the resources to make it worthwhile... but you can do as well by going to State Property and install wall-to-wall workshops in your production cities. Std Ethanol is an option if you have lots of grain resources as well, and GSci should be easy to get. But with all the corps, its all a question of whether there are enough resources to make them worthwhile or not. If you do not have aluminum but do have coal, the Aluminum corp is a "must have".

(c) War+military-the biggest factor in slowing my games down is war and diverting resources to to defense. Make your neighbors freindly while you expand as much as possible peacefully, then backstab them mercilessly. Make sure to occupy their other friends first, though.

I should point out though that my spaceship victories are usually a couple centuries behind the real top-notch players, so their's lot for me to learn.

 

[AgedOne]

@kcd_swede
Thanks! Lots of food for thought there. Especially on point (b).
The familiar problem that I have with space colony attempts is that I achieve - and then lose - a large tech lead. There are lots of other factors (low production, spending too much time on warfare, resources...) but this is the most frustrating one and the one I really need to sort out. I was hoping that a combination of large sushi-fuelled cities and the National Park would give my research the extra boost it needs into the modern era.
Mining corp was an 'extra' to really ramp up the production at spaceship build time. In addition to all the other production-boosting measures that I tend to fling in (forge, factory, power, levee, laboratory, converting preserves to lumbermills - not in the NP city of course, converting towns to workshops) I think Mining Co would help me keep pace in a space race.

 

[kcd_swede]

@kcd_swede
Thanks! Lots of food for thought there. Especially on point (b).
The familiar problem that I have with space colony attempts is that I achieve - and then lose - a large tech lead. There are lots of other factors (low production, spending too much time on warfare, resources...) but this is the most frustrating one and the one I really need to sort out. I was hoping that a combination of large sushi-fuelled cities and the National Park would give my research the extra boost it needs into the modern era.
Mining corp was an 'extra' to really ramp up the production at spaceship build time. In addition to all the other production-boosting measures that I tend to fling in (forge, factory, power, levee, laboratory, converting preserves to lumbermills - not in the NP city of course, converting towns to workshops) I think Mining Co would help me keep pace in a space race.

Its sounds like your difficulty isn't your own tech rate, but the tech rate of your rivals. Especially at the higher levels, the AI can really get those last techs quickly via espionage, Internet, trading, and AI tech cost bonuses. If you are just toe-to-toe tech racing them, I also have trouble getting things done in time. And they can really build parts fast.

What I find most useful is using diplomacy to try and start wars between the rivals. Nothing slows them down like war... you can afford to give them a spaceship tech to start a war and it should still slow them down, but better something military. (Stop the war before they totally roll over another civs, though).

The other thing to do is after you get Fusion, put all that scientists to work as spies, espionage slider on max. Sabotage SS parts can save you a few turns... but sabotaging buildings usually only 1 turn for them to rebuild it next turn.

Anyhow, you have to watch closely... there are usually 1 or 2 civs who might be capable of beating you in a peaceful race. If its too close for comfort, you need to postpone plans for space until after you get a bunch of modern armor and kill them.

 

[Debanad]

When I saw the pre-order for Civ 5 I decided to come back to IV after about 2 years off. Very rusty still, but at least I got a win: 1879 AD Monarch on inland sea.

I think my biggest problem was my macro game in not warring and grabbing enough land/cities quickly enough. I used to play a lot of duel Space Race games where a good score came down to grabbing like 60% of the land (making sure to not trigger dominiation) and then a ton of city micromanagement to maximize the half dozen or so cities.

I see a lot of people using Rainforest or Big and Small maps for this challenge, might have to give them a try next time. Debating if I should go up to Emperor (the max i used to consistently win) or see how early i can get a settler win in.