Hi!
After going back to CivBE and trying Rising Tide for a little while, i decided to try to do one long relaxed game and see how it'll go. This here topic will be the place i'll be reporting my progress with it.
The goals are:
- to win the game in order to get "Just... One... More... Turn" otpion, and
- to "live happily ever after" afterwards, for as long "ever" as i'll be able to, while having my Colony within its borders (not expanding, not shrinking).
The start is:
- Soyuz difficulty (dubbed "very hard" by the game; one step below Apollo)
- Standard pace
- Standard map size
- Lush biome (i prefer its looks, nothing else)
- Terran planet type
- Victory conditions: all
- Time limit: off (obviously)
- Sponsor: Polystralia
- Colonists: artists
- Titanium/oil/geothermal revealed
- Free worker
- Random seed: on
The rest settings are at their default values.
One more thing - in this game, i do save scum (hence random seed on) in some situations: namely excavating and when picking up resource pods. I'll possibly be "living" with results of those activities for very long time (one guy played a single Civ2 game for TEN years, you know, famous story). Not likely i'll ever get close to that, but i still want to "squeeze" the best at all possible beginning for that colony of mine.
1. The start.
Made nearly 40 restarts and finally found what i was looking for for a capital city location:
- coast start;
- river going right next to the city;
- some tiles with 3+ food per tile when improved (sadly, no tiles with 4 units of food, though) close to the city;
- abundant hills;
- workable titanium tile;
- no AI landing nearby.
Luckily, the last point in my game was fulfilled unusually well - nearest AI is on the far side of "my" continent, and that continent is a big one. I tried some more restarts after finding this game, and realize it would probably take eternity to find anytihng better. Good thing i saved that start's turn1!
2. Early game.
First thing i did was to build 6 explorers and send them hunting for artifacts. With some save-scumming, i was able to get an artifact per each resource pod and per each excavation which can give one.
Second thing i did - was to build the Ultrasonic Emitter. Polystralia is obviously trade-heavy colony, and i want the "aliens can't attack trade units" upgrade ASAP. Problem is, it can get massively delayed by other building-related quests. I've had it happen before, and i won't have it now. Plus, it's not Apollo game, so i have some space (i mean, time) for such "wrong" things done very early. Why not use it.
Then the usual starting buildings.
By the turn 50 my capital reached population = 7 (with one expedition providing 1 population for free), and had some mines on nearby hills and that neat Titanium tile (which also happened to be a hill). With over 30 shields to produce things, Settlers are built rather quick.
Too quick! I found that it's not exactly reasonable to "spit out" more than 3 settlers in a row when you only have the capital. "Too many units" problem! %) But, of course, it's of short issue.
Turn 69.
Nice number, i know.
At exactly this sexy turn, i got my 3rd Progenitor-class reward from collected artifacts. So in total, by turn 69, rewards from combining artifacts which i managed to get - are those:
- Dimension Folding Complex (-50% population-generated unhealth in all cities, Progenitor class)
- Temporal Calculus (+2 visibility to all units, Progenitor)
- Relativistic Data Bank (-1 Intrigue per turn in all cities, Progenitor)
- Ground-Penetrating LIDAR (+100% expedition speed, Mixed)
- Warp Spire (+50% yields from domestric trade routes, Old Earth)
- Drone Command (all cities work 2 more tiles than they have citizens, Old Earth)
- Frontier Stadium (military units start with free promotion and +10 city defense, Old Earth)
- Pan-Spectral observatory (+100% prodution for orbital units and +2 city orbital coverage, Old Earth)
- Xenomass Bathhouse (+2 culture and units heal for 100% in one turn when in city, Old Earth)
This already makes my colony tremendously more potent than any AI present, but this is still not all i plan to do with 'em artifacts. There are still large "black" areas on the map, where i'll get few more Progenitor and Alien artifacts. There will be no more Old Earth ones as i exhausted full pool of them (24 total), and now resource pods never give me one (and i believe, nor any AI will get Old Earth ones anymore). But since i got everything i wanted from Old Earth artifact type rewards, this is OK. I still have 2 Old Earth artifacts sitting in my library, and those will help me get few more Mixed type rewards i still don't have, but want to get. After those are taken and almost all of the map revealed - which is mightily easier with Temporal Calculus already active on all my units, - i'll get nasty towards aliens and get as many alien artifacts from their nests as i can. That all should allow me to get most or even all of the following:
- Slumber-Slaughter extract (+50% worker build speed, Mixed)
- Soul Discerner Training (+25% Covert Operation speed, Mixed)
- Sky Chitin (+50% strength and +3 range to all air units, Alien)
- Vapor Shield (+100% defense to all embarked units, Alien)
- Projected Chassis Construction (+2 Worker Movement Speed, Alien)
- Tidal Navigation (+100% defense to Naval Units against Ranged Attacks, Alien)
- Statecraft (+2 Diplomatic Capital from Agreements, Mixed - if i'll have artifacts for it)
That all would be 15 or 16 artifact rewards (out of 24 possible), requiring in total 45 or 48 artifacts, correspondedly - i.e. the majority of theoretically available in a game 72 artifacts (24 max per each cathegory, 24x3 = 72).
Granted, this is only possible with heavy save-scamming when getting any chance of gaining an artifact, to make that chance actual 100% "granted" every single time, and may be considered by many as "unfair" play. But not by me. Those AIs have large bonuses to lots of things on Soyuz difficulty i play, and they are not shy to use them. So in very same manner i am not shy to use my own advantage over them - which is the ability to save and load in order to maximize my benefits when collecting artifacts. And since it's a single player game, my stance here won't affect any living player, so - "why the heck not".
Besides, i do enjoy save-load process, as strange as it may sound - mostly i do it when i'm in bed for the night, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a three, and most of the save-load cycle doesn't require neither my eyes, which i close for the time being, nor my hand to use the mouse. So it's quite relaxing, and interestingly helps to get sleeping (which i sometimes have some problem with). %)
Anyhows, back to artifacts' rewards. The thing is not only to get those most useful for a long play features myself, but also to deny them to AI opponents. In a long play, eventually AIs will get to as high tech and affinity levels as i will ever be, but those features - those powerful bonuses to both peace and war times, - will allow me to have an edge. And so, even if at some past-end-game stage a single AI will consume all other AI colonies and become hostile to me, i'll still have means to resist his attacks. At least, that's the plan!
Research by this turn 69 is quite OKish: i have all the basic technologies ("cheapest" ones, including both leaf techs in very center of the tree) opened, the tech which allows Spy Agency opened, and one leaf tech which allows to build Panopticon.
Unit-wise, at this point i have those 6 explorers still going strong, one "free" soldier for establishing by 2nd city, one Drone (from one of excavations) doing awesome-sauce scout and pick-em-pods duty, and two trade vessels. One trade vessel is permanently doing Trade Station job for extra food and science in the capital, another is on shift duty helping outposts grow faster.
2nd city is already shaped and is building its trade depot. 3rd city is still an outpost, but will "pop out" in a few turns. The outpost for 4th city is just starting to grow.
Speaking of new cities, there is one special additional consideration which i followed when picking locations for them: alien nests. 2nd city has one alien nest among its workable radius, and i already bought the tile - it was the 1st thing i did after that city formed up. 3rd city has none alien nests in its workable area, but it sits in a strategic location i had to take ASAP. 4th city will have TWO alien nests in its workable radius, and as before, as soon as the city will fully shape itself up, i'll buy tiles under those alien nests. Those three alien nests in my territory will be left undisturbed, providing continuous improvement to my "Polystralia - Aliens" relations. Thanks to those i hope not to "fall" into full hostility with aliens for long when i'll start that "artifact war" with them.
Diplomatic relations are almost none, as it should be that early in the game and being far from other (AI) colonies. However, i made one agreement - one of AIs was kind enough to "sell" me an agreement of rather strange nature: for paying them 3 dimplomatic capital per turn, i got me a bonus of +3 diplomatic capital at neutral level relations. But i improved relations to "cooperative", at which point the "price" remained the same, while the bonus increased to +8 diplomatic capital per turn. So i'm getting net +5 diplomatic relations "out of thin air" out of this one. Hehe. The only thing bothering me about this is that "cooperative" level of relations grants that AI open borders to my territory. But it sits far away from me, so for now i let it be.
In terms of virtues, i went for the most wise - IMHO - investment there is if we talk post-late gameplay: namely taking 4 virtues in Military 1st to get the bonus to any affinity points taken from researching technologies. It piles up. Getting it that early allows to get maximum possible affinity points in all 3 (or should i say "in all 6?" %) ) directions. After those, i went for the usual Industrial virtues' tree, aiming to eventually get the mighty +0.2 health per each building bottom-row virtue, while getting other neat virtues along the way. Of which, by turn 69 i already got 2. Not too many, but in a few turns it'll be 8 virtues taken total, with the free (bonus) virtue for 6 tier-one virtues taken. Good enough for me.
... to be continued (i hope)
After going back to CivBE and trying Rising Tide for a little while, i decided to try to do one long relaxed game and see how it'll go. This here topic will be the place i'll be reporting my progress with it.
The goals are:
- to win the game in order to get "Just... One... More... Turn" otpion, and
- to "live happily ever after" afterwards, for as long "ever" as i'll be able to, while having my Colony within its borders (not expanding, not shrinking).
The start is:
- Soyuz difficulty (dubbed "very hard" by the game; one step below Apollo)
- Standard pace
- Standard map size
- Lush biome (i prefer its looks, nothing else)
- Terran planet type
- Victory conditions: all
- Time limit: off (obviously)
- Sponsor: Polystralia
- Colonists: artists
- Titanium/oil/geothermal revealed
- Free worker
- Random seed: on
The rest settings are at their default values.
One more thing - in this game, i do save scum (hence random seed on) in some situations: namely excavating and when picking up resource pods. I'll possibly be "living" with results of those activities for very long time (one guy played a single Civ2 game for TEN years, you know, famous story). Not likely i'll ever get close to that, but i still want to "squeeze" the best at all possible beginning for that colony of mine.
1. The start.
Made nearly 40 restarts and finally found what i was looking for for a capital city location:
- coast start;
- river going right next to the city;
- some tiles with 3+ food per tile when improved (sadly, no tiles with 4 units of food, though) close to the city;
- abundant hills;
- workable titanium tile;
- no AI landing nearby.
Luckily, the last point in my game was fulfilled unusually well - nearest AI is on the far side of "my" continent, and that continent is a big one. I tried some more restarts after finding this game, and realize it would probably take eternity to find anytihng better. Good thing i saved that start's turn1!
2. Early game.
First thing i did was to build 6 explorers and send them hunting for artifacts. With some save-scumming, i was able to get an artifact per each resource pod and per each excavation which can give one.
Second thing i did - was to build the Ultrasonic Emitter. Polystralia is obviously trade-heavy colony, and i want the "aliens can't attack trade units" upgrade ASAP. Problem is, it can get massively delayed by other building-related quests. I've had it happen before, and i won't have it now. Plus, it's not Apollo game, so i have some space (i mean, time) for such "wrong" things done very early. Why not use it.
Then the usual starting buildings.
By the turn 50 my capital reached population = 7 (with one expedition providing 1 population for free), and had some mines on nearby hills and that neat Titanium tile (which also happened to be a hill). With over 30 shields to produce things, Settlers are built rather quick.
Too quick! I found that it's not exactly reasonable to "spit out" more than 3 settlers in a row when you only have the capital. "Too many units" problem! %) But, of course, it's of short issue.
Turn 69.
Nice number, i know.
At exactly this sexy turn, i got my 3rd Progenitor-class reward from collected artifacts. So in total, by turn 69, rewards from combining artifacts which i managed to get - are those:
- Dimension Folding Complex (-50% population-generated unhealth in all cities, Progenitor class)
- Temporal Calculus (+2 visibility to all units, Progenitor)
- Relativistic Data Bank (-1 Intrigue per turn in all cities, Progenitor)
- Ground-Penetrating LIDAR (+100% expedition speed, Mixed)
- Warp Spire (+50% yields from domestric trade routes, Old Earth)
- Drone Command (all cities work 2 more tiles than they have citizens, Old Earth)
- Frontier Stadium (military units start with free promotion and +10 city defense, Old Earth)
- Pan-Spectral observatory (+100% prodution for orbital units and +2 city orbital coverage, Old Earth)
- Xenomass Bathhouse (+2 culture and units heal for 100% in one turn when in city, Old Earth)
This already makes my colony tremendously more potent than any AI present, but this is still not all i plan to do with 'em artifacts. There are still large "black" areas on the map, where i'll get few more Progenitor and Alien artifacts. There will be no more Old Earth ones as i exhausted full pool of them (24 total), and now resource pods never give me one (and i believe, nor any AI will get Old Earth ones anymore). But since i got everything i wanted from Old Earth artifact type rewards, this is OK. I still have 2 Old Earth artifacts sitting in my library, and those will help me get few more Mixed type rewards i still don't have, but want to get. After those are taken and almost all of the map revealed - which is mightily easier with Temporal Calculus already active on all my units, - i'll get nasty towards aliens and get as many alien artifacts from their nests as i can. That all should allow me to get most or even all of the following:
- Slumber-Slaughter extract (+50% worker build speed, Mixed)
- Soul Discerner Training (+25% Covert Operation speed, Mixed)
- Sky Chitin (+50% strength and +3 range to all air units, Alien)
- Vapor Shield (+100% defense to all embarked units, Alien)
- Projected Chassis Construction (+2 Worker Movement Speed, Alien)
- Tidal Navigation (+100% defense to Naval Units against Ranged Attacks, Alien)
- Statecraft (+2 Diplomatic Capital from Agreements, Mixed - if i'll have artifacts for it)
That all would be 15 or 16 artifact rewards (out of 24 possible), requiring in total 45 or 48 artifacts, correspondedly - i.e. the majority of theoretically available in a game 72 artifacts (24 max per each cathegory, 24x3 = 72).
Granted, this is only possible with heavy save-scamming when getting any chance of gaining an artifact, to make that chance actual 100% "granted" every single time, and may be considered by many as "unfair" play. But not by me. Those AIs have large bonuses to lots of things on Soyuz difficulty i play, and they are not shy to use them. So in very same manner i am not shy to use my own advantage over them - which is the ability to save and load in order to maximize my benefits when collecting artifacts. And since it's a single player game, my stance here won't affect any living player, so - "why the heck not".
Besides, i do enjoy save-load process, as strange as it may sound - mostly i do it when i'm in bed for the night, sometimes for an hour, sometimes for a three, and most of the save-load cycle doesn't require neither my eyes, which i close for the time being, nor my hand to use the mouse. So it's quite relaxing, and interestingly helps to get sleeping (which i sometimes have some problem with). %)
Anyhows, back to artifacts' rewards. The thing is not only to get those most useful for a long play features myself, but also to deny them to AI opponents. In a long play, eventually AIs will get to as high tech and affinity levels as i will ever be, but those features - those powerful bonuses to both peace and war times, - will allow me to have an edge. And so, even if at some past-end-game stage a single AI will consume all other AI colonies and become hostile to me, i'll still have means to resist his attacks. At least, that's the plan!
Research by this turn 69 is quite OKish: i have all the basic technologies ("cheapest" ones, including both leaf techs in very center of the tree) opened, the tech which allows Spy Agency opened, and one leaf tech which allows to build Panopticon.
Unit-wise, at this point i have those 6 explorers still going strong, one "free" soldier for establishing by 2nd city, one Drone (from one of excavations) doing awesome-sauce scout and pick-em-pods duty, and two trade vessels. One trade vessel is permanently doing Trade Station job for extra food and science in the capital, another is on shift duty helping outposts grow faster.
2nd city is already shaped and is building its trade depot. 3rd city is still an outpost, but will "pop out" in a few turns. The outpost for 4th city is just starting to grow.
Speaking of new cities, there is one special additional consideration which i followed when picking locations for them: alien nests. 2nd city has one alien nest among its workable radius, and i already bought the tile - it was the 1st thing i did after that city formed up. 3rd city has none alien nests in its workable area, but it sits in a strategic location i had to take ASAP. 4th city will have TWO alien nests in its workable radius, and as before, as soon as the city will fully shape itself up, i'll buy tiles under those alien nests. Those three alien nests in my territory will be left undisturbed, providing continuous improvement to my "Polystralia - Aliens" relations. Thanks to those i hope not to "fall" into full hostility with aliens for long when i'll start that "artifact war" with them.
Diplomatic relations are almost none, as it should be that early in the game and being far from other (AI) colonies. However, i made one agreement - one of AIs was kind enough to "sell" me an agreement of rather strange nature: for paying them 3 dimplomatic capital per turn, i got me a bonus of +3 diplomatic capital at neutral level relations. But i improved relations to "cooperative", at which point the "price" remained the same, while the bonus increased to +8 diplomatic capital per turn. So i'm getting net +5 diplomatic relations "out of thin air" out of this one. Hehe. The only thing bothering me about this is that "cooperative" level of relations grants that AI open borders to my territory. But it sits far away from me, so for now i let it be.
In terms of virtues, i went for the most wise - IMHO - investment there is if we talk post-late gameplay: namely taking 4 virtues in Military 1st to get the bonus to any affinity points taken from researching technologies. It piles up. Getting it that early allows to get maximum possible affinity points in all 3 (or should i say "in all 6?" %) ) directions. After those, i went for the usual Industrial virtues' tree, aiming to eventually get the mighty +0.2 health per each building bottom-row virtue, while getting other neat virtues along the way. Of which, by turn 69 i already got 2. Not too many, but in a few turns it'll be 8 virtues taken total, with the free (bonus) virtue for 6 tier-one virtues taken. Good enough for me.
... to be continued (i hope)