Conquests 01: Final Spoiler

[bradleyfeanor]

I agree Detlef! Now if only I can get a Presidential candidate here in the US to run on the "A CivFanatic in Every Home" platform.

 

[AlanH]

Now look at this. You ask a simple question, and hordes of people rush to answer -all at the same time...

The easy ones always get a good response. It's the "How do I get the AI to make the tea/do the washing up/take out the garbage" ones that are met with stunned silence.

 

[denyd]

The easy ones always get a good response. It's the "How do I get the AI to make the tea/do the washing up/take out the garbage" ones that are met with stunned silence.

That one's easy, just ask your wife if you can call her AI from now on (be ready to duck)

The really tough question, is how did Ronald launch a spaceship before 1700 AD when tech rates were doubled

 

[scoutsout]

The really tough question, is how did Ronald launch a spaceship before 1700 AD when tech rates were doubled

I bet he made extensive use of specialists.

One thing I noted in milking my game was the power of the specialists. I basically shut down research after Replaceable Parts (wanted the uber-worker to deal with pollution...)

By the time I reached the mid-industrial age, I was making positive gpt with the Luxury slider set to 100%. Motorized Transportation was a 6-turn tech for me - even with the research slider at zero. I actually wound up with several Modern Era Techs... though the only one I really wanted was Ecology.

I had a whole lot of turns between hospitals and Mass Transit with absolutely hellish pollution... 10-12 tons of fresh pollution per turn on average... and one turn I think I got 16 tons... and no - I did not have any factories.

I'll post a more complete report later this evening. I just finished the game last night.

Oh - and many, many thanks to Dianthus for his utilities and SirPleb for his War Academy article on milking. This was the first time I ever deliberately pursued a Histographic win. I would not have been able to pull it off without those two things. (Copies of both now reside on my hard drive...)

 

[SniperDevil]

thanks for all the replys to my question lol

 

[Megalou]

The really tough question, is how did Ronald launch a spaceship before 1700 AD when tech rates were doubled

I agree, great game Ronald! Reaching the domination limit so early simultaneously was impressive and cool.

 

[Gnat]

Open

I had a fairly easy time of the Industrial Ages. I aimed to get through the Industrial Ages peacefully and go for a Diplomatic victory. After I completed Smith's I switched to Democracy (had been Monarchy up to that point). Once a democracy I researched like mad, and sold my techs on, keeping up a sizable income and fuelling my research.

Sumeria was still a huge culture mine, but I got him pegged, and half-way through the IA, was starting to catch Sumeria. I never got below half its culture, so was not likely to have a 100k culture loss. Everyone was really happy with me, until after I completed Motorized Transportation (ToE had given me Steel & Combustion). At this point I was two techs away from Fission & the UN. Sumeria decided that since he wasn't going to win by culture, he'd better stop me. So war in 1788 AD.

A VERY large stack entered my territory. Thankfully it was mostly Crusaders, awithout much Infantry. I had 17 Artillery. and started building more, along with Tanks & Infantry. My Artillery proved very useful knocking the hit points off the Sumerian units, allowing my Medieval Infantry & Cavalry to finish them off. The main thing I did to help myself was get the other three races (Korea, China & Portugal) to enter military alliances against Sumeria. All it took was some Dyes (rather cheap I felt). Now the other three were Gracious - boding well for a Diplo victory.

The unfortunate downside was the war weariness. Instead of finishing in 1820, my people got upset, and I eventually finished in 1844 (with Korea & Portugal voting for me - China was my opponent). But the upside was I learnt quite a bit about how to manage fights, and getting Leaders (got another 3 compared to the one I got in my previous wars).

I did find the Bomber's lethalness rather fun, and once I realised it was there, made much better use of it.

So when the game finished, I was 7 cities away from eradicating Sumeria (after a very slow start in the war), and had been at war for 30 turns. I was surprised I coulddo this with a Democracy, but obviously Police Stations & lots of luxuries keep those people happy.

I'm a little unhappy with my score (Firaxis 2375, Jason 4288) because I know I could have finished quite a lot earlier. probably taking out Sumeria in an earlier age would have done it. Simply suing for peace in this last war, and getting my produciton back would have helped a few turns, but I was enjoying the war.

Looking forward to the next COTM (too late in the month to start GOTM, plus my wife would kill me).

 

[scoutsout]

Timeline - COTM1 (Open Class)

70 BC (turn 125) - Captured Khurasan to begin the Arab War
280 AD (turn 144) - Captured Basra to end the Arabian Conquest
480 AD (turn 164) - Captured Eulbar (First Babylonian War)
490 AD (turn 165) - Captured Uruk (effective end of first Babylonian War)
590 AD (turn 175) - Captured (Beginning of Sumerian War)
970 AD (turn 213) - Captured (end of Sumerian conquest)
1030 AD (turn 219) - Captured Ashur (beginning of second Babylonian war)
1150 AD (turn 231) - Captured Eridu (end of Babylonian Conquest
1340 AD (turn 259) - Captured Lisbon (beginning of Portugese war)
1395 AD (turn 270) - Captured Sao Paulo (end Portugese conquest) Captured Cheju from Zulu (who had just taken it from Korea, beginning of Zulu War)
1450 (turn 281) - Captured Ibandango (end Zulu conquest)
1475 (turn 286) - Captured Xinjan (beginning of Chinese War)
1505 (turn 292) - Captured Kaifeng to end Chinese conquest, Captured Manp'o and Pyonsong to begin Korean War
1525 (turn 296) - Captured Pyonyang to end Korean War; Korea banished to 1-tile island, and kept hemmed in by Privateers for the remainder of the game.

From the Capture of Lisbon to the Capture of Pyonyang: 37 turns. I love Cavalry. My biggest regret in this game was waiting too long to build a decent navy. Otherwise I might have begun my conquest on the other continent sooner.

From this point forward I was milking. I decided to keep the higher food sites, grow the borders, and abandon the cities that appeared marginal for population growth.

An interesting (and powerful) component of Dianthus' utilities is cultural expansion warnings. Two turns prior to a cultural expansion that will claim more tiles, you can get a warning that will allow you to do one of several things. In several cases, I simply sold off cultural improvements prior to the expansion. Once 21 tiles are claimed, additional expansions may claim tiles that cannot be worked (or tiles that will push you over the domination limit). If anyone looks at my save they will find several cities with nearly full culture bars producing zero culture per turn.

In other cases (when a given expansion was desired) food-poor cities could be abandoned to stay under the domination limit, but allow more promising cities to grow. This phase of the game lasted from 1510 (Kaifeng abandoned, turn 293) to 1725 (Ibandango abandoned, Turn 336). After the cultural expansion/city abandonment phase, I was 16 tiles from domination in 1730.

After analyzing my empire, I located some claimed tiles that could not be worked by citizens. I settled some infill sites to put as many citizens on tiles as I could. I also settled some carefully selected sites that would allow me to claim just a few additional tiles and use some tiles within my borders that could not otherwise be worked.

Beginning in 1730 (Turn 337) I settled 17 cities, with "Last Town" settled in 1898 (Turn 415). These 17 towns claimed a total of 13 additional tiles. (Most were infill sites).

By 1950 (turn 440) I had claimed 1543 Tiles (3 short of Domination). I had 1434 Happy Citizens, 2 content, 649 Specialists, and 9 tons of Pollution.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I had a rough time with pollution for a while, all of it generated by population. I generally found it better to clean this up manually, after some failed experiments with <Shift-D> This is what the pollution scale looked like in Zimbabwe before the Mass Transit System was built:

...and this is what it looked like afterwards:

By endgame, I had increased the population to 1456 Happy citizens and 706 specialists. Seoul was my largest city, with 20 happy citizens and 22 specialists, followed by Beijing (20/20) and Zimbabwe (20/19). Other large cities included Shanghai (19/19), Babylon (18/18), with Lagash, Baghdad, and Ngome all 20/15.

 

[SniperDevil]

Ok i have another stupid question. hehe. taht has nothing to do with this thread. hehe. After winning my first game with space race victory and getting Lincoln the Lion Hearted (my highest score ever but on Warlord) I was shown a video of a space ship taking off. Are there other videos for any of the other victory conditions?

 

[denyd]

The only video is for space victory (though you do get kissed by everybody for a culture win).

I do miss the wonder movie from Civ2, but at least you get one for space.

 

[SniperDevil]

thanks for the info denyd

 

[Ronald]

The really tough question, is how did Ronald launch a spaceship before 1700 AD when tech rates were doubled

I was building marketplaces, libraries, banks, universities and stock exchanges in all productive cities, so I could research at 100% most of the time. Additional I had a super science city with Copernicus and Newton. Outside the productive area, I used an ICS approach to get as much as possible advantage from being a commercial civ. In the modern age I had a prebuild for the Internet and I used TOE to get the first 2 modern age techs.

As mentioned in the spoiler, I forgot to bring the scientific civs in to the industrial age and Korea into the modern age, so I wasted about 20 turns.

Ronald

 

[a space oddity]

C3C - Open class

Much overdue the report of my game:

My limited experience with C3C did include some with the new specialists. To explore this a bit further, I thought I'd have a go at milking.
I started the game like most did, by popping many huts. This resulted in: 25 gold, maps, Masonry, 25g, maps, maps, settler (very far away), maps. No too useful. I walked the settler halfway across the continent (all the way from the Bab east coast ) to settle near enough and still claim some lux. The colony that resulted gave me some worries since it was hard to defend, in the end it *did* help to block the Babs between us and Sumeria.

The Arabs were our first victim, their land and Horses 'are belong to us'.
The Babs would wait for us to come to them and declared us. In a brief pause in the effort against the Arabs, the Arabs helped finishing off the Babs. Very useful, their troops were too far to claim cities, but were targets for the Bab bowmen. When the Arabs had to fight us again their troops were caught outside of the cities.

The Sumerians were cultural giants in my game too, but I emphasized culture too in the beginning, to claim much of the land to help early score. Sumer was so kind to build the Great Lighthouse for us. We started a small war to claim it and made peace as soon as we did (750AD).

I considered China the weakest and they had some choice lands too. The Knights I sent claimed a city beachhead, were I moved all the Knights. The three Armies that were the result of all the warring finished, the remaining parts of Sumeria. Meanwile in China another leader was born, so an Army was built there as well.

The Zulus were weak and followed soon after. Portugal had conquered Korea so they were the toughest to beat, but with a save an buzzing home continent, the didn't stand a chance.

Around 1400AD the warring was over and the remaining AI banned to distant islands. I left three of them alive, and was punished by that mistaken by having a city flip in 1962! By then I had sold many of the cultural buildings to not accidently trip either the 100k victory or domination (first in the coastal cities).
For a while I was worried about Magellan's and I didn't want to disband the entire city. So I kept 2% below the domination mark just to be safe.

Since people are the main score factor and tiles limited to the domination threshold, I grew some cities to enormous sizes (Seoul: 35 pop). Of course this gave me problems with pollution, but the science specialists helped to reserch into the modern ages, even with science on 0%.

One last remark: I built the Knights Templar, but found the units to be utterly useless and they lost many battles. They proved to have the same role as Archers, finish weakened units.

 

[SniperDevil]

One last remark: I built the Knights Templar, but found the units to be utterly useless and they lost many battles. They proved to have the same role as Archers, finish weakened units.

My Knights Templar really helped me to defeat Babylon in the early Midieval Ages.

 

[samildanach]

My Knights Templar really helped me to defeat Babylon in the early Midieval Ages.

I didn't build that wonder, but I found the knights to be a nuisance when I was conquering portugal - I lost 3-4 cavs against them. I might consider building it in future games just so the templar don't get in my way. I didn't build it because I thought they were just too slow to be useful - can you disband Templar for shields in peripheral towns like normal units?
I didn't bother using mapstat this game. Like space I just used the status screen to keep 2-3% below dom. I meant to DL dianthus's utility for GOTM 32 but I forgot all about. I tried out ainwoods trade Assist on GOTM31 which works quite well but is crash prone. Didn't use it this month as I was using the movement/gold exploit for 2-8 rounds per turn so i was checking the diplo screen regularly anyway. Does dianthus's utility warn of riots? Ainwoods does - i got quite a few riots when not using it because I got accustomed to not checking my cities.

 

[Karasu]

I didn't build Knights Templar either. I have the impression that this unit moves too slow to be really useful when Knights - Cavalries are online or about to be available.

Probably the Statue of Zeus is a little more useful...

 

[Kiech]

The Knights Templar is an awesome wonder. You get the 2nd most powerful foot unit (bezerker) until Replaceable parts. Quite a shame Babs got it before me. I had to change my whole attack strategy after he built it.

 

[scoutsout]

I built Knights Templar. I got them into minor action against Babylon, and then used several to capture Lisbon. In holding that first coastal city they are handy, because they can built fortifications... that is the most redeeming quality of the Knights Templar - I think they're the only combat unit that can build forts.

@samildanach: You can disband KTs for shields. You really should try Dianthus' latest version of MapStat. It includes trading features now (workers for sale, new techs...) and yes, it will alert you if you have a pending riot problem.

@Karasu: Given the choice, I prefer SoZ over KT; mainly because I like fast units, and AC come in so much earlier....

 

[grahamiam]

I didn't build it because I thought they were just too slow to be useful - can you disband Templar for shields in peripheral towns like normal units?

yes you can do that but i forget how many shields you get. I think it's around the same as a longbow, iirc. however, you can also think of the crusaders as pikes with a mean streak. quite useful if you lack horses or iron as you'll get a unit with pretty good punch that should let you secure both. i also usually look at them as fairly disposable units, doing the dirty work like suppression or 1st attack on muskets in hill towns. didn't bother in this game though as i was done just after the 1st ai reached chivalry.

 

[dmanakho]

I build Knights Templar when I can...
Generally i don't use crusaders much but i don't want others to use them either.
And yes you can disband them for shields.