Emperor Challenge (?) #13 - Shoshone Pangaea

[homegrown]

This was a piece of cake after playing some deity starts as shoshone over the past couple weeks. I went 4 cities tradition, 2 on mountains, and snagged both NWs to work. Everyone asked me to help dogpile Pachacuti right after Education and after razing one city and approaching his capital, he gave me all 4 of his other non-cap cities in peace, 3 of which I also razed. Germany and Portugal continued on but weren't making any progress, so 10 turns later, I capped Cuzco and annexed it. It was smooth sailing from then on out.

The entire world picked Order (I reached it first, by a LONG way). Picked up Workers of the World Unite, Soma Tablets for Everyone, and Built (almost) In A Day.

 

[Tabarnak]

nice map... I guess I can try to get the fastest win if somebody chooses a certain VC....

Wanna try a SV challenge? Going to go for it anyways. Tired of dom. games for now

I want to break my 239 turns mark. And you should try to beat your 215.

 

[budweiser]

Ah, the classic salt/wheat/marble. Pity I have no time this week.

What sort of challenge could one make of this?

Spoiler :

Only scouts are allowed outside your borders.

Did it. T278, only scouts ever left my borders.

 

[joshua43214]

nice map... I guess I can try to get the fastest win if somebody chooses a certain VC....

nahh, Its more fun to cram your ideology and religion down the AI's throat in the WC lol

 

[Tabarnak]

What an awesome map! I think i'm gonna cry ...

1 thing bugged me...the lost of Petra at some turns of completion. Perfect map for 3 cities Tradition food focused strategy. I skipped the GL. I didn't build an early worker, bought some of them, beginning with a settler(el dorado). I opened with 2 scouts on steroids then a settler.

I bullied like 7 or 8 cs in the beginning(not those pledge protected from AIs). To do that i didn't pledge-protect cs too soon. So i could rapidly buy my workers. Build some extras from capital later after the NC(turn 69). This land is so rich that we need approx 2 workers per city to maintain growth. HG in TE-MOAK but that's it for wonders. CI soon finished in capital. Education following(with a detour to engineering for extra food caravan in Pohokwi) for turn 97 or 98. Consulates in 10 turns.

Spoiler :

 

[budweiser]

Tab - ToA + SH early would be enough to GE Petra later on. That's what I did first time through. I like this map so much I played it twice.

Another nice thing is you can have a worker on turn 2 and really see the difference it can make.

What do people think is the best choice for goodie huts here?

 

[dragonxxx]

What is goodie huts?

 

[budweiser]

What is goodie huts?

ruins

 

[Tabarnak]

Got over 500 bpt pre-Public schools

Spoiler :

Good timing : In 4 turns...Oxford for Radio, Globe Theatre and natural culture jump. Storaged a writer too.

Spoiler :

 

[cas]

I bullied like 7 or 8 cs in the beginning(not those pledge protected from AIs). To do that i didn't pledge-protect cs too soon. So i could rapidly buy my workers.

I've never understood how to bully a CS. How many troops do you need in the vacinity ? 2 or 3 on their borders ?

cas

 

[homegrown]

It depends. And increases over time. If you had two shoshone-pathfinders-ruin-upgraded-into-composite-bows, you can get some really early gold. I've been able to get tribute with a spear and an archer, but failed with 2 comp bows and a seige tower as assyria.

 

[Tabarnak]

I've never understood how to bully a CS. How many troops do you need in the vacinity ? 2 or 3 on their borders ?

cas

You need to be top 3 military. No pledge and protects from both side(you and AI) make this easier too. You can check faisability when you let your cursor on the ask button(list of green and red numbers). Easier to ask friendly cs than hostile ones.

1st place(+100) : 1 unit(strongest most of the time) can be enough. Depends if another AI unit is wandering around. I bullied 2 cs with a single Shoshone UU.

2nd place(+80) : 2 units are preferably needed.

3rd place(+60) : Almost all units are needed.

Your unit(s) need to be within 8 tiles of cs core. Check EVERY TIME YOU MOVE A UNIT AND EVERY TURN if you plan to chain bully cs around you. The window of bullying can be very small and you don't want to miss an opportunity(so much important in mp games where other humans can't cheat so you can stay top 3 if you really want).

 

[soprof]

Your unit(s) need to be within 8 tiles of cs core

I have info about 5.

 

[FrostK]

Well, that was fun. SV on T258, could have been ~30 turns faster if I had not given into wonder whoring

Want to confirm this, just got SV in 230 turns. One could do it even faster cause I forget about observatories bought them on ~215 turn.

Spoiler :

Build in cap: pathfinder->pathfinder->pathfinder->granary->settler->settler (+1 settler was bought)->GL->TA->...
Build in cities: library->granary.
Got Education on 90 turn
I have read this thread before playing so victory is not absolutely honest.

 

[glory7]

Spoiler :

Tab and I choose the very same spots for all cities - I considered building 5th city (south of cap) next to the mountain instead (near two CS), but to get additional 2 salts and river wheat tile (in addition to 2 cows + citrus + dear) I chose the southern spot without mountain.

SP: full tradition - pat open - rati open (oracle) - secularism (GW) - free thoughts - etc

with El dorado gold, I bought scout and worker. Later I got 2 workers from Inca and 2 from CS (1 was with bullying....). I rescued several workers from barbs and kept 2 more workers for myself and returned others (mainly to CS).

cap BO: scout - granary - scout - GL - NC - ToA - settlers - HG - HS - Writer's guild - Oracle/univ - etc

religion: fertility rights (got it with faith ruin) - pagoda + tithe - religious community + 30% more spread. Pretty standard. I enhanced it right after founding it (with HS prophet).

AIs were really poor and tech rates were abysmal... so I did not sign any RA. All caravans were used for food.

It seems that sub 200 SV could be possible, but not sure.

This map is so OP... there were one more spot north of cap (2 salts+ etc) but I thought I could not afford happiness and went with 5 cities. Actually, this is my first time going for tradition 5 cities... most of the time it was 4 cities.

 

[Tabarnak]

Pretty similar i agree. You are a bit ahead of me. I also used all caravans for food.

I can see 2 things that can make a difference :

-You built ToA and got fertility rites
-You generate less faith

But i'm still have a bit more population. You hit education a lot more sooner than me(engeneering detour), but the detour may explain why i'm still even in pop. Of course you had hit Radio 8 turns before me.

What can make a difference later is my decision of completing or not Rationalism to get my free tech earlier and to rush buy more gs.

Also, i built every gardens where i could(Te-Moak with HG) when i had hit education and finished asap the National Epic in capital. Pisa have been built way more earlier. So i settled 3 gs before Radio. I wonder if this good gs rate can also neat me an extra gs near the end.

Pretty exciting isn't it?

 

[glory7]

Pretty similar i agree. You are a bit ahead of me. I also used all caravans for food.

I can see 2 things that can make a difference :

-You built ToA and got fertility rites
-You generate less faith

But i'm still have a bit more population. You hit education a lot more sooner than me(engeneering detour), but the detour may explain why i'm still even in pop. Of course you had hit Radio 8 turns before me.

What can make a difference later is my decision of completing or not Rationalism to get my free tech earlier and to rush buy more gs.

Also, i built every gardens where i could(Te-Moak with HG) when i had hit education and finished asap the National Epic in capital. Pisa have been built way more earlier. So i settled 3 gs before Radio. I wonder if this good gs rate can also neat me an extra gs near the end.

Pretty exciting isn't it?

1. lower fpt: yes, I did not build any faith building (not even shrine). didn't have a chance to build them.

2. pop: I think I should have chosen 15% growth, instead of pagodas - I could buy only 3 pagodas and all of them were during renaissance (300 faith). What were your religion choices?

3. no garden for me except cap - I settled only one GS as when I got 2nd one spt was already 300+.

4. Your culture rate is a lot higher than mine - I got 3 allies and 1 friend culture CS but no culture buildings at all (no amphitheater....). Did you get hermitage/musician guild? I got writer's guild and artist guild at cap.

And yeah, both games look very similar so far - and it's likely that future paths will be similar.

 

[Tabarnak]

1. lower fpt: yes, I did not build any faith building (not even shrine). didn't have a chance to build them.

I got DF

2. pop: I think I should have chosen 15% growth, instead of pagodas - I could buy only 3 pagodas and all of them were during renaissance (300 faith). What were your religion choices?

Tithe, Pagodas, +growth when not at war and IP

3. no garden for me except cap - I settled only one GS as when I got 2nd one spt was already 300+.

After review maybe i should had keep the 3rd one.

4. Your culture rate is a lot higher than mine - I got 3 allies and 1 friend culture CS but no culture buildings at all (no amphitheater....). Did you get hermitage/musician guild? I got writer's guild and artist guild at cap.

Yep, everything built in cap but no musician guild. Culture was so high that i even reached the science boost from cs(gave me around 110 bpt)

-----------------------

Well i played more and i'm short in gs for the end. Both Oxford and free tech from Rationalism(Plastic, 161) have been consumed. I bought 2 gs with faith and 1 ge(Hubble). When i reached max bpt(around 1700) i wait 8 turns and burned every gs. Now i can't have new one for at least 20 turns, the number of turns i have to self tech to the last part

If i had 2 more science boosts i would have finished below 200. I stopped at 197 and i will finish at 218. I built a 6th city for extra coal so every cities can have his factory. That new city reached 80 bpt in less than 20 turns so i doubt that was slowing me down. If i had build that city much more earlier, then i would probably have reached an extra gs...but slowing down mid techs...

I'm a bit lost here on how to ''not wait'' for the end and cut off like a dozen of turns. I'm looking for your game to see where i'm wrong(if i am).

 

[Tabarnak]

In my first try(180+ turns) i burned 2 gs at 1550 bpt to reach Apollo and started this wonder at 182. I got 9 gs total for the end so 7 of them were remaining. But i realized that i built it too soon because i didn't make a good use of allocated specialists to boost science a bit more.

So i reloaded the game at 180 and played 7 turns without burning a single gs and focused on getting little chips of science here and there. I will still have 9 gs in some turns when i will finish Hubble. Apollo isn't started yet and the gs can be as much as powerful as free techs in regard of highest techs cost(8 turns self tech for nano for example). I'm hoping for a sub 210 finish this time.

Spoiler :

Another question : Is it better to burn a gs each turn or you can burn them at once? I noticed in my first try that a gs didn't ''break'' a tech at all, needed 2 gs to get next tech...so did i lost these beakers?

For this try i will burn 1 max for each turn and see if it's better.

I can't see how i can finish under 200 without deity RAs.

 

[Tinker]

Don't Great People now keep their beakers/culture/whatever they're allocated on the turn of spawning, not the turn of using?