Congratulations LulThyme, you have become the 20KKKKing! 
First 20 K Deity win?
- Thread starter LulThyme
- Start date
boogaboo
Josef Popper 4ever
OMG... I mean 20K on Sid?!
OMG
Congrats amigo, you deserve a rest (and some prizes...)
OMG
Congrats amigo, you deserve a rest (and some prizes...)
Raised from the dead! Good thread Lul, I've been trying Sid and I can't tell you how annoying it is missing Colossus by 1-3 turns on an otherwise nice start.
I've been messing around with industrious thinking it may help speed up early builds, but in fact I don't need help with builds at all, I either get them or not, and then i have nothing to build! My last game I got Colossus no problem but I'm just cranking out warriors now...
I tried Ottomans because their UU is so nice it may allow me to get some leaders and rush some small wonders. Alas, being able to start on writing seems to be the way to go.
I've been messing around with industrious thinking it may help speed up early builds, but in fact I don't need help with builds at all, I either get them or not, and then i have nothing to build! My last game I got Colossus no problem but I'm just cranking out warriors now...
I tried Ottomans because their UU is so nice it may allow me to get some leaders and rush some small wonders. Alas, being able to start on writing seems to be the way to go.
MeteorPunch
#WINNING
Meteor Punch, I did get a 1796 Sid 20 K win on Hof later, but I had to restart so many times and wait so long into the game that I didnt really have notes so did not do a full thread.
Sometimes, a game that looks good at end of middle ages crashes, as the AI suddenly wakes up, kicks you ass in tech and wonder building.
Anyway Smirk, I would like to help you a get some ideas, as I might try and beat my record sometimes in the next few months.
What settings are you using (map settings, AIs, start strategy etc.)
For Sid, I used Archipelago, least land arid and warm, most mountains.
The goal is to get worst terrain possible to stop the AI (worked pretty good actually)
If youre lucky they wont even be able to irrigate their starting island (no fresh water) and will be stuck at size 6.
Then I used mongols and zulus as AIS
And then my biggest change was using byzantines.
I would build colossus, then a few curraghs to go meet the AIs.
Then my settler, some warriors etc.
By that time the curraghs have met the AIs. I can build a temple, granary if needed etc usually can prebuild the oracle
all the while im research writing, philo etc...
I think forsaking a few early wonders (pyramids and oracle) is good if it allows you to dominate the AIs.
The main thing to remember is, whatever plan you have, you will need LUCK
(and therefore patience)
Sometimes, a game that looks good at end of middle ages crashes, as the AI suddenly wakes up, kicks you ass in tech and wonder building.
Anyway Smirk, I would like to help you a get some ideas, as I might try and beat my record sometimes in the next few months.
What settings are you using (map settings, AIs, start strategy etc.)
For Sid, I used Archipelago, least land arid and warm, most mountains.
The goal is to get worst terrain possible to stop the AI (worked pretty good actually)
If youre lucky they wont even be able to irrigate their starting island (no fresh water) and will be stuck at size 6.
Then I used mongols and zulus as AIS
And then my biggest change was using byzantines.
I would build colossus, then a few curraghs to go meet the AIs.
Then my settler, some warriors etc.
By that time the curraghs have met the AIs. I can build a temple, granary if needed etc usually can prebuild the oracle
all the while im research writing, philo etc...
I think forsaking a few early wonders (pyramids and oracle) is good if it allows you to dominate the AIs.
The main thing to remember is, whatever plan you have, you will need LUCK
(and therefore patience)I started with similar settings, 3B, arid and cold, tried some with warm. I was using Zulus and Mongols also. I also (after reading this) tried avoiding pottery using Japan and Egypt (China also worked like was mentioned here), not enough games yet to tell what effect it has. Actually I haven't gotten much past 1000BC in any game yet.
Initially I went the route of researching mysticism, and a couple games I was able to build colossus and then oracle, one game I built colossus started on oracle got beat to that then switched to and built pyramids. All of those were without ivory so I had to ditch them once a civ built the statue, it could be that the statue is a higher priority and the reason I was able to build oracle or pyramids was because on a civ was building the statue.
The biggest unknown for me is early contact and potentially trading. In only few of the maps was I able to get contact and in none of them was I able to trade for, or with anything. I've yet to use your technique of minimum on writing, but will be trying that once MapFinder gets me some maps. Were you able to trade anything with writing or your amassed gold?
Initially I went the route of researching mysticism, and a couple games I was able to build colossus and then oracle, one game I built colossus started on oracle got beat to that then switched to and built pyramids. All of those were without ivory so I had to ditch them once a civ built the statue, it could be that the statue is a higher priority and the reason I was able to build oracle or pyramids was because on a civ was building the statue.
The biggest unknown for me is early contact and potentially trading. In only few of the maps was I able to get contact and in none of them was I able to trade for, or with anything. I've yet to use your technique of minimum on writing, but will be trying that once MapFinder gets me some maps. Were you able to trade anything with writing or your amassed gold?
YES!!
Usually once i met the AIs I would almost be tech leader If i wanted (not that I did, i only traded for CB sometimes pottery, since the goal is to slow tech pace, and youre going to build Great Library).
Btw having ivory is a MUST for Sid level.
I just cant imagine even winning without SoZ.
The writing rush is important to get a quick republic I find to boost research capability, production, get Litterature etc and will easily compensate for loss of one of the very early great wonder in my experience, though if you could do both in a very lucky game, that would be great.
Usually once i met the AIs I would almost be tech leader If i wanted (not that I did, i only traded for CB sometimes pottery, since the goal is to slow tech pace, and youre going to build Great Library).
Btw having ivory is a MUST for Sid level.
I just cant imagine even winning without SoZ.
The writing rush is important to get a quick republic I find to boost research capability, production, get Litterature etc and will easily compensate for loss of one of the very early great wonder in my experience, though if you could do both in a very lucky game, that would be great.
Ok, I'll just report my game in this thread since I didn't really take notes and the bulk of my game consisted of me bombarding with dromons and then later frigates...ugg
After reading thru the log of that one city culture attempt I had some ideas how I was going to proceed, so instead of starting with colossus I started with a curragh, then colossus.
This was to be an always war game, with the hopes that this plays some tricks on the AI and kept them down, so to speak. I got contacts pretty early, and being basically without anything of worth did no trading, this worked well since the tech rate was really slow. I reached MA first and generally kept ahead of the Zulus, whereas the Mongols were hopelessly behind.
I started researching burial since I figured without any trading I would have a long time without anything to build, and when I completed burial and got a science leader I thought long on what I was going to do next so that this game *was* the game to top the HOF. I changed many of my plans at this point and for better or worse I decided to research Mysticism and attempt building the oracle. At this point the other civs were doing other things and seemed to be ignoring burial so I figured I would have a chance. Also my start was so fantastic that I was easily ahead of the AI if were were to start on a wonder together. It also helped that I had dromons out and about harrassing their development.
My start and my island were great I had 4 luxuries on my island, 3 within easy reach, the furthest being ivory. I had 3 grassland cows, 1 mountain, 3-4 hills and a lake for fresh water. Only 3 coastal tiles and one tundra. I had >25 shields as a city, and 35 once I got max pop. I didn't have horses or iron, and neither other civ had both, Zulus had horses and Mongols had iron. I was able to get both on small islands and using harbors. I had saltpeter on one of those islands once that appeared but I didn't have coal and never got it, never needed it. And therein was the biggest flaw in my game, the tech pace was soooo slow, I did no useful tech trading. I did trade some useless stuff (free artistry, etc) after I built the wonders for gold, I did this when the Zulus build the workshop so he wouldn't go upgrade crazy and try to attack me.
I got the same results as the person saw in that one city culture always war game, the civs never left their island, and never really tried. The zulus made lots of attempts but while I sank most of his ships before they could do anything, some reached land and he only ever had fighting units in them. And this wasn't even until middle MA, I saw and killed maybe 3-5 galleys from each civ, once Zulus got caravels I saw a lot more of these.
Another failure, or poor planning on my part is that I wasn't able to get an army and an army win. I did get about 20 elites, and did get a leader in between my turn which died shortly thereafter. I've got little experience dealing with a landing *so* hostile. Not to mention I'm convinced the AI has an attack bonus versus the human (or the combatcalc isn't right anymore). Every landing attempt I typically lost a unit on the second or third battle regardless of my good odds, knights, pikemen and muskets on hills versus impi, bowmen and horsemen. On the other hand I dropped 4 muskets on Mongols mountain with iron and he attacked me twice and then left me alone the rest of the game.
At any rate the tech pace was slow, lots of times I had no culture to build so while I had a good shield start it wasn't really essential. I though I would do much better but while I beat the top time it wasn't by much. I won in 1752 with about 4k points. Took ~30 hours, some of thats from running when I get drawn away to do other stuff, but with all the bombarding I expect a lot of the time was that.
After reading thru the log of that one city culture attempt I had some ideas how I was going to proceed, so instead of starting with colossus I started with a curragh, then colossus.
This was to be an always war game, with the hopes that this plays some tricks on the AI and kept them down, so to speak. I got contacts pretty early, and being basically without anything of worth did no trading, this worked well since the tech rate was really slow. I reached MA first and generally kept ahead of the Zulus, whereas the Mongols were hopelessly behind.
I started researching burial since I figured without any trading I would have a long time without anything to build, and when I completed burial and got a science leader I thought long on what I was going to do next so that this game *was* the game to top the HOF. I changed many of my plans at this point and for better or worse I decided to research Mysticism and attempt building the oracle. At this point the other civs were doing other things and seemed to be ignoring burial so I figured I would have a chance. Also my start was so fantastic that I was easily ahead of the AI if were were to start on a wonder together. It also helped that I had dromons out and about harrassing their development.
My start and my island were great I had 4 luxuries on my island, 3 within easy reach, the furthest being ivory. I had 3 grassland cows, 1 mountain, 3-4 hills and a lake for fresh water. Only 3 coastal tiles and one tundra. I had >25 shields as a city, and 35 once I got max pop. I didn't have horses or iron, and neither other civ had both, Zulus had horses and Mongols had iron. I was able to get both on small islands and using harbors. I had saltpeter on one of those islands once that appeared but I didn't have coal and never got it, never needed it. And therein was the biggest flaw in my game, the tech pace was soooo slow, I did no useful tech trading. I did trade some useless stuff (free artistry, etc) after I built the wonders for gold, I did this when the Zulus build the workshop so he wouldn't go upgrade crazy and try to attack me.
I got the same results as the person saw in that one city culture always war game, the civs never left their island, and never really tried. The zulus made lots of attempts but while I sank most of his ships before they could do anything, some reached land and he only ever had fighting units in them. And this wasn't even until middle MA, I saw and killed maybe 3-5 galleys from each civ, once Zulus got caravels I saw a lot more of these.
Another failure, or poor planning on my part is that I wasn't able to get an army and an army win. I did get about 20 elites, and did get a leader in between my turn which died shortly thereafter. I've got little experience dealing with a landing *so* hostile. Not to mention I'm convinced the AI has an attack bonus versus the human (or the combatcalc isn't right anymore). Every landing attempt I typically lost a unit on the second or third battle regardless of my good odds, knights, pikemen and muskets on hills versus impi, bowmen and horsemen. On the other hand I dropped 4 muskets on Mongols mountain with iron and he attacked me twice and then left me alone the rest of the game.
At any rate the tech pace was slow, lots of times I had no culture to build so while I had a good shield start it wasn't really essential. I though I would do much better but while I beat the top time it wasn't by much. I won in 1752 with about 4k points. Took ~30 hours, some of thats from running when I get drawn away to do other stuff, but with all the bombarding I expect a lot of the time was that.
Congratulations on a great game Smirk, seems Ill have to go back to Sid, too!
(note that I was planning on revisiting that eventually.)
Two comments :
To get an army, it might be a good idea to let them establish a foothold somewhere else, once youre strong enough to contain it. That's easier than mounting an attack on home island.
Also, since in this type of games you have to research from the start, and the map is horrible, it seems research speed will be important maybe even more then shield production. Would it be possible to get the details on map setting, and dates for wonder built? Maybe even a final screenshot or something? To get some ideas...
I think these dates are beatable.
When I did my game, I didnt have mapfinder, and I dont think I got a Leader even though I beat them to all the techs, except a couple start ones.
Always war or something like that sounds good.
I have some ideas concerning this, I'll report how it goes after.
One final question.
In your game, how many times (if any) and when, did the AIs have techs you didnt have, and did you trade, or research to slow down the tech pace?
(note that I was planning on revisiting that eventually.)
Two comments :
To get an army, it might be a good idea to let them establish a foothold somewhere else, once youre strong enough to contain it. That's easier than mounting an attack on home island.
Also, since in this type of games you have to research from the start, and the map is horrible, it seems research speed will be important maybe even more then shield production. Would it be possible to get the details on map setting, and dates for wonder built? Maybe even a final screenshot or something? To get some ideas...
I think these dates are beatable.
When I did my game, I didnt have mapfinder, and I dont think I got a Leader even though I beat them to all the techs, except a couple start ones.
Always war or something like that sounds good.
I have some ideas concerning this, I'll report how it goes after.
One final question.
In your game, how many times (if any) and when, did the AIs have techs you didnt have, and did you trade, or research to slow down the tech pace?
Btw (this just flashed me).
For this type of game, wouldnt another trait then militaristic be better ?
They get cheaper barracks, more promotion, cheaper harbors (which are pretty important) I dont know.
Maybe religious or indistrious?
Any thoughts?
Also another LAST question, did you specifically wait for a SGL, or was that extra goody?
For this type of game, wouldnt another trait then militaristic be better ?
They get cheaper barracks, more promotion, cheaper harbors (which are pretty important) I dont know.
Maybe religious or indistrious?
Any thoughts?
Also another LAST question, did you specifically wait for a SGL, or was that extra goody?
Thats a good point about militaristic, although if you keep them contained it doesn't really matter. I forgot to mention I *love* Byzantine, their UU is perfect for this map type and game, just gotta be careful early on so you don't start GA early. (Although I forgot to mention it, but I got GA in despotism, wasn't payin attention to my wonders and got it with the library.)
My settings were unchanged: arid, cold and 3 billion. I don't think I would change anything there. Other civs were seperate and thats required I think, I was playing and they spawn together often, but the tech rate is lightning and they don't war early or enough for it to help me. In fact I figure late game I would see armys instead of tons of weak units.
About the leader, I was stunned, I sat there staring at the screen for a few minutes with no doubt an unbelieving mindless grin. I wouldn't play to that, and in hindsight because of the slow research and my ideas of keeping it slower, it actually didn't help me much, although the pyramids was nice (As an aside I hand built curragh, colossus then oracle, followed by a rushed pyramid.) I could have used it before building the oracle, but I figured if I did that then I might miss out. That is, maybe one of the civs values pyramids more and will start with that, I can get oracle before they finish that, then steal pyramids with the leader. It did seem to work just about how I figured.
I never traded any of my current research to the AI, I did trade for Chivalry (Zulus had horses but no iron.) but that actually was a waste as I never managed anything with knights. I think I gave them Theology or something. Also as I mentioned I took his gold when he built the workshop. The mongols were far behind so I didn't even keep track of them after we got MA.
Oh yeah I forgot, it was so long ago, I did keep a timeline to 10AD as I usually do.
Sid
palace -3950
temple -2110
library -490
pyramids -1350 leader
colossus -2430
oracle -1375
great library -150
lighthouse -570
mausoleum *
10 AD 39 cpt
Zulus built the mausoleum. Some of my times were slower than in your game, notably library and great library are slower, also you got the mausoleum. The only difference is I got pyramids, oracle and lighthouse in the same time frame. I think lighthouse is higher priority on these maps, now it doesn't do much for me, except maybe depending on map allow you to get resources from islands faster, but keeping it away from the AI is much more important.
My thoughts for future games is that you want a slow tech during AA and beginning MA but after that let loose a little, I think it hurt me a little being so slow. I think letting the pace go a little faster and keeping the high shield start will work better, less waste in the capital and faster access to other wonders. I actually didn't waste much time in my capital, but I did build wonders I would normally ignore. Also forget about Monarchy, I mistakenly thought I would need this, but I think with two militaristic civs, get them to declare war on you then ride the reverse war weariness, for lots of happiness and great commerce as well.
More on the techs, I was behind in the start of AA, I had to learn masonry, warrior code, Poly and math myself for the wonders. But I got the great library and learned everything else (republic and construction among others), I entered MA first researching currency.
Oh yeah, I got monotheism as my MA free tech and medicine in IA.
My settings were unchanged: arid, cold and 3 billion. I don't think I would change anything there. Other civs were seperate and thats required I think, I was playing and they spawn together often, but the tech rate is lightning and they don't war early or enough for it to help me. In fact I figure late game I would see armys instead of tons of weak units.
About the leader, I was stunned, I sat there staring at the screen for a few minutes with no doubt an unbelieving mindless grin. I wouldn't play to that, and in hindsight because of the slow research and my ideas of keeping it slower, it actually didn't help me much, although the pyramids was nice (As an aside I hand built curragh, colossus then oracle, followed by a rushed pyramid.) I could have used it before building the oracle, but I figured if I did that then I might miss out. That is, maybe one of the civs values pyramids more and will start with that, I can get oracle before they finish that, then steal pyramids with the leader. It did seem to work just about how I figured.
I never traded any of my current research to the AI, I did trade for Chivalry (Zulus had horses but no iron.) but that actually was a waste as I never managed anything with knights. I think I gave them Theology or something. Also as I mentioned I took his gold when he built the workshop. The mongols were far behind so I didn't even keep track of them after we got MA.
Oh yeah I forgot, it was so long ago, I did keep a timeline to 10AD as I usually do.
Sid
palace -3950
temple -2110
library -490
pyramids -1350 leader
colossus -2430
oracle -1375
great library -150
lighthouse -570
mausoleum *
10 AD 39 cpt
Zulus built the mausoleum. Some of my times were slower than in your game, notably library and great library are slower, also you got the mausoleum. The only difference is I got pyramids, oracle and lighthouse in the same time frame. I think lighthouse is higher priority on these maps, now it doesn't do much for me, except maybe depending on map allow you to get resources from islands faster, but keeping it away from the AI is much more important.
My thoughts for future games is that you want a slow tech during AA and beginning MA but after that let loose a little, I think it hurt me a little being so slow. I think letting the pace go a little faster and keeping the high shield start will work better, less waste in the capital and faster access to other wonders. I actually didn't waste much time in my capital, but I did build wonders I would normally ignore. Also forget about Monarchy, I mistakenly thought I would need this, but I think with two militaristic civs, get them to declare war on you then ride the reverse war weariness, for lots of happiness and great commerce as well.
More on the techs, I was behind in the start of AA, I had to learn masonry, warrior code, Poly and math myself for the wonders. But I got the great library and learned everything else (republic and construction among others), I entered MA first researching currency.
Oh yeah, I got monotheism as my MA free tech and medicine in IA.
davidcrazy
Warlord
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2003
- Messages
- 178
great game and sound strategy, LulThyme! I enjoy reading your write-up. have you tried 20k with PTW?
