Earth 18 civs, BC win?

[dfg26]

I was wondering if I could do this, and decided to give it a go. I used settler difficulty, because I'm not sure if it would be possible on any of the higher ones with my skills. I'm sure some freak out there has already done this on deity..

Also I reloaded multiple times during this, because I figured that playing on settler is already cheating so why not go for maximum cheese... Naturally I used marathon speed.

I play as the mongols, don't know if some other civ would be better suited for this, probably... First I warrior rush China and India who are still undefended at this point. Persia was a bit tougher nut to crack because he already had 2 warriors at this point and the random number generator kept screwing with me, so I admit I reloaded few times here. But then:



I pop a settler from a hut right next to Europe, so I'm able to pump out warriors quickly. Arabia, Egypt and Greece all have only one warrior and fall quickly. I start battering Europe with Axes and Chariots, but then I realize Tokugawa is also on this map (I honestly had forgotten about him..):



Oops... Well, no big deal, he's on his small Island, I can take him out later, right?

I take out the rest of Europe by 1000 BC:



I leave my original capital to the barbs so my palace gets moved to Europe instantly without me having to build it. Then I make one coastal city so I can prepare for the Japan invasion. Then I build the great wall so I don't have to deal with barb crap. In retrospect I should've made at least one more city next to it, and I probably should've retaken Karakorum at some point.



Sending few keshiks to take out Mansa Musa:



Now it's just a matter of racing to astronomy ASAP. I build the mids, the great lighthouse and all the good stuff. I bulb machinery 360 BC, self tech optics, and Oracle astronomy at 310 BC:



30 turns left to invade the new world (and Toku). Is it doable? We'll see soon!

I load my keshik army to galleons, plus one settler so I can make a canal between the Americas, so I can get to Hyuana. Roosevelt falls pretty effortlessly at 210 BC:



The Atzecs capitulate with one city left so I save one turn. Now after the Inca:



The Incan empire is gone at 20 BC. Will I make it?!

Spoiler :

Unfortunately no, Tokugawa proved to be too tough for me. I should've focused my attention to him earlier on and If had remembered he was in the game, I would've played a bit differently from the start. Maybe I could've switched to universal suffrage and bought some troops?

But overall this was pretty fun and I'll have to try it again some time. Definitely doable at least on settler.

Have any of you done this with any difficulty?

 

[georgjorge]

Nice write-up, and nice game! I thought you would make it...

 

[pigswill]

You might be better off starting in Europe and keeping some of the nearby cities. The bottleneck is going to be astronomy of course. Maybe I'll have a go, I've been playing Earth 18 marathon recently, got conquest with Rome 580ad so it could be a challenge.

 

[pigswill]

Marathon settler. 1140bc conquest. The main thing is to focus on building HAs, researching astronomy and nothing else.

 

[dfg26]

Marathon settler. 1140bc conquest. The main thing is to focus on building HAs, researching astronomy and nothing else.

Damn, that's impressive. What civ? Do you think it's possible on the higher difficulties?

 

[pigswill]

Went with Alexander, mainly for European starting location and philosophical trait for earlier GS. It should be possible for BC victory on noble, good players would no doubt get BC conquest at much higher difficulty.

 

[Bandobras Took]

Marathon settler. 1140bc conquest. The main thing is to focus on building HAs, researching astronomy and nothing else.

I haven't played the map; is it theoretically possible to get enough culture at the Bering Strait to be able to cross it without astronomy?

 

[dfg26]

I haven't played the map; is it theoretically possible to get enough culture at the Bering Strait to be able to cross it without astronomy?

Now that you asked... I went ahead and tested it in the world builder and yes, it is indeed possible! I'll be posting some results soon...

EDIT: I'm too tired to try this now, but there's a spot where if you settle a city, and culture blast it with a great artist, the borders will expand JUST enough to reach America and that way you can transport a settler to the other side. So probably bulb math and oracle music for the great artist? Should be a lot quicker than beelining astronomy.

 

[pigswill]

Went for conventional astronomy beeline again, noble marathon, conquest 550bc. Cleard the old world (and Japan) by 1000bc, eventually got astronomy 900bc (oracle machinery, research compass and calnedar, 3 GS for optics and astronomy). After crushing loads of warriors and archers arrived in Inca lands....HC had 3 cities and 15 axes!

 

[Kid R]

there's a spot where if you settle a city, and culture blast it with a great artist, the borders will expand JUST enough to reach America and that way you can transport a settler to the other side. So probably bulb math and oracle music for the great artist? Should be a lot quicker than beelining astronomy.

Or transport all the horsies instead of settler? Helluva long way round for them to gallop tho!

 

[Bandobras Took]

Or transport all the horsies instead of settler? Helluva long way round for them to gallop tho!

If you transport a Settler, you only have to build one Galley, and then you can build horsies over there. Otherwise, you need to build lots of galleys.

 

[dfg26]

You need that second city to bypass those 2 ice tiles


BUT if you don't want to do all that, you can just unload all your horses to 1N2W of that fort in the picture, which will be accessible with only city #1 (but the galleys themselves can't move past it)

 

[MyOtherName]

A pair of forts would get you through just the same, wouldn't they?

 

[Bandobras Took]

Do forts have to be in cultural borders to allow sea passage?

 

[pigswill]

iirc forts can only be built inside cultural borders.

 

[dfg26]

Do forts have to be in cultural borders to allow sea passage?

Yeah I think that's the case.

 

[Kid R]

Karakorum to Washington = 27 turns by Keshik including a turn on the galley - not too bad?

 

[Powerfaker]

......And from Washington it's 6T to Aztec city, then 7T to Inca city. You need that 2nd city on the other side for your galleys to reach the Inca with those Keshiks. If you found it 1N you don't need the border pop.

Techwise the music path is a much better option then astro. It's Aest+Lit versus Cal,IW,MC,Mach,Comp,Opt (Constr after Music to build the fort).
From logistic point my guess it's only better for the far eastern civ's.

I was triggered by this thread to try something myself. I chose to play Elizabeth at settler/marathon. Despite all those lovely resources it's tough to accelerate tech rate in an early stage with most earth civ's. I thought Elizabeth would have the fastest Astro date.

=> So far, killing all mainland civ's was super easy, 1W+1A city defense at best. No one expanded. First wave of 5 HA's go east after Europe. A temporarily ''Suez canal city'' lets some galleys go east to get Japan. Next HA's go for Mali resp Russia. All this is done by ±1800BC.
And tech is just as fast. I finish Mach ± same date, have 1 GS ready to bulb Opt and 1T in Oracle to go to get Astro, 5 galleys and 1000 gold are available for upgrade to galleon. One minor issue: I discovered I cannot bulb Opt, my bulb list is warlords not BTS.....ouch. GS will choose Alpha or Aest before Opt (and maybe more). So no bulb, an extra 10-12T is needed to get Opt, then ±10T to kill the American civ's.
I got optimal results from the 2 huts by the way, a settler at T5 and later HBR from the Irish hut. Then conquest started perfectly timed a few turns after a French worker appeared (±2700BC). I kept Paris , Rome, Berlin and Madrid, everything else was razed, all workers captured. Kept 100% science going with conquestgold and failgold.

I think the Music approach is best done with Japan for fastest conquest date. With Mongols I don't know, could easily be 500 years later.

 

[dfg26]

Techwise the music path is a much better option then astro. It's Aest+Lit versus Cal,IW,MC,Mach,Comp,Opt (Constr after Music to build the fort).
From logistic point my guess it's only better for the far eastern civ's.

Isn't math the only requirement for forts?

 

[Powerfaker]

You are right. For forts you need Math. My mistake. I should check these things before I post it. Obviously I don't build forts on a regular base haha.

I tried this with Egypt now too. A lot of hut abuse for settlers/workers/techs/gold. Mainland civs are eliminated even faster thanks to war chariots. Got to Music 2200BC. I counted out what it takes from here: 40T to travel settlers+artist by galley from Mecca to settle the Alaska crossover, 13T to build the fort with 3 workers, 20T to reach Inca with galleys. So ±75 more turns and a finish date ± 1350BC at best. With galleons from Europe it yakes only 10T. So there's a timeframe of 65T + what I invested in Aest+Lit for Astro to compete with Music, more than enough to make Astro quicker is my guess.

(NB: Reaching Music at settler level 2200BC is equivalent to ±1000BC at Immortal level tech-price-wise, considering the freedom at settler not as great as it may sound. And the same for Astro in my previous post where 1800BC would be equivalent to 400BC)