Domination by Ozymandius

[Ozymandius]

I'm slowly working up the ladder in both map size and difficulty level and wish to share some of my experiences. Presently I'm playing at the Monarch level on a standard size map and have finished with similar scores and dates for three complete (and many discarded) games in a row. The main limitation in improving my score is that I just can't get a Scientific Great Leader to build one of the coveted wonders. My civilization of choice is the Celts because of the speed of movement and attacking power. I would estimate that a SGL appears in one game in a hundred and that is an optimistic guestimate.
Map Choice: Pangaea, normal temperature, 5 billion years old.
Barbarians: Sedentary. Opponents: non with Alphabet, non with scouts.
Ottomans, Germans, Persians,China, Japan, Egyptians, Mayans: All have advances I wish to trade for to get the basic techs.

I could never figure out how to use the automatic map generator so I evaluate every map and save for future use.

1. River (bonus grassland essential)
2. Nearby goodie hut
3. a bonus resource (You can never have too many cows)
4. a luxury (ivory almost essential)
5. No swamp, jungle, flood plain (may the originator burn in hell)
6. Room for expansion in 4 directions
7. No extreme N S E W location for troop movement.

Once a map is generated the colonist may be moved one square to avoid popping a GH or to gain a bonus grassland square.
Build the city, research 100% on Mysticism.
Move the worker to the nearest GH to pop a second settler.
Without the settler I abandon the map.
I build two warriors in each city and send three out exploring for other civs for tech exchanges. At Monarch level all other GH are poison for much of the early game. In my experience most result in barbarians which will destroy your warrior in most cases if you dare to attack.
Don't bother trading a tech until you have met at least 2 civs who share the same technology. It is advantageous to pop a GH near an opponents city because barbarians will head for the city and you can trade for a worker.
If you are stronger you can make peace with each civ for an advantageous tech deal. At least get their 10 gold pieces.
Adjust your science slider as you approach 2 yrs to avoid wasting gold.
Research order: Mysticism, Alphabet, Polytheism, Writing, Philosophy, free Monarchy, Mathematics if I have ivory. I hope to enter monarchy between 1750 and 1500 and save gold for upgrading warriors to Celtic Swordmen.
My capital produces: warrior, warrior, settler, Granary, settler, and wonder of choice, preferably Zeus and Temple of Artemis. Another Civ will build the pyramids. I have not been able to get a good score without Artemis. A SGL would allow the building of at least another ten swordmen for earlier conquest if Artemis or Pyramids were free.
Occasionally I have warriors lined up at three GH right after completing writing for a free philosophy boomerang while researching monarchy.

Any hints from successful tactics to improve my score will be greatly appreciated.
As always, I believe luck in finding a good map with GH that allow rapid development is as important as skill.
May the cows and elephants populate your map.

 

[Elear]

My main comment: are you playing on 60% percent pangaea? Because it appears so, and that raises the domination limit much higher than it has to be.

You're right about the importance of Artemis and hence that's why some of the best times do have SGL -- as unfortunate as it is -- I would also recommend that you do get Mapfinder to work as I'm not really that thrilled about the start you seem to have selected in the screenshots provided. It doesn't seem to have enough food to establish several strong settler and worker factories. This indicates your expansion is too slow and likely your conquests are slower than they have to be as well.

 

[Ozymandius]

My main comment: are you playing on 60% percent pangaea? Because it appears so, and that raises the domination limit much higher than it has to be.

I just click on the Panagea map in the start up screen. How can I lower the domination limit of the map provided?

And Mapfinder: I was never good at reading instructions or even finding where the files are kept.

 

[Elear]

There should be three choices for pangaea: 60, 70, and 80 percent water respectively. You want more water since it doesn't count toward the domination limit (apart from coast tiles).

As for Mapfinder, it's actually not too hard to find the files it generates. You can access them in the Map Report window that opens when you stop Mapfinder. It doesn't matter where they are stored at that point, since you can save them wherever you wish.

 

[Ozymandius]

There should be three choices for pangaea: 60, 70, and 80 percent water respectively. You want more water since it doesn't count toward the domination limit (apart from coast tiles).

Would not the larger percentage of water create a more fragmented continent making it much more difficult to move troops to the other civs for conquest? I've only played on the 60% land maps and have no experience with building roads around lakes and seas.

 

[Elear]

Actually, if you play pangaea, it will be all one landmass. Occasionally 80 percent pangaea will have a civ on a tiny island somewhere in the ocean, but this isn't exceptionally common on tiny, small, and standard size maps. And certainly, your odds of having all civs on the pangaea rather than one of the tiny islands that sometimes generates are much much better than getting a SGL.

 

[Marsden]

Also, domination doesn't require you kill everyone, just take over 66% land and pop. so that last guy on the island isn't usually a factor.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

One thing you can do if you are sick of waiting for an SGL is try a huge/deity level one AI will build your wonders for you, faster than you can possibily reseach mysticism anyway!

 

[Bartleby]

With regard to "false pangaea," if you're using Mapfinder then you can just start using the lowest Domination Limit maps--the lower the Domination Limit, the shorter the coastine and therefore more likely fewer landmasses.

 

[Mathias]

Given the high domination limit of 1547 tiles, your 130 BC victory is rather impressive. My 270 BC victory was on a map with a domination limit of a mere 815 tiles.

Other notes on my game:
- No SGL
- Built only a single wonder: SoZ
- ToA was built by a rival and immediately captured
- There was one AI on a separate landmass.

 

[Ozymandius]

Given the high domination limit of 1547 tiles, your 130 BC victory is rather impressive. My 270 BC victory was on a map with a domination limit of a mere 815 tiles.

Playing for all these years and only now do I learn that "standard" map size means anything but that... I'm determined to get at least one high score when all the planets are aligned.

 

[Mathias]

Considering that the two maps were 20% land for my game and 40% land for yours, one would expect the domination limit of yours to be approximately double that of mine.

 

[Ozymandius]

I upped the water by 10% on my present try, loaded in a few computer utilities and am now suffering from game crashes. Now I'm in the process of cleaning out files, putting in a new virus program, multiple conflicts with AVG, Kaspersky, and old Vanilla files when reloading C3C... I should not have tried housecleaning but kept it messy...

 

[Ozymandius]

I'm trying to post my latest results through Firefox but the sbmissions page is frozen when I try to access my file. It's been a long time since I've used internet explorer.
I think, (if my computer can upload it) my latest game gives me a tie for first place; 210 BC Turn 114 10,219 pts for a standard monarch domination.

 

[Ozymandius]

I think I just did it. I used my new Vista laptop but I could not find the files.
How do you upload files directly from Vista? I could not upload the Sav files without transfer to a kingston drive .

Anyways:
Turn 104 470 BC 10,874 points on Standard Monarch but still no GL.