First Attempt at Tiny 20K - Abandoned

[denyd]

First of all to Lulthyme

I decided to try a tiny 20K for as a quick attempt for a HOF entry and gave it up at about 600 AD when I compared my results at that point to the masterful work my Lulthyme.

I played as the Celts with the Zulu & Mongols as my only opponents on a continents map. A pretty good start moving 2 tiles and having 2 cows, a river, 2 forrests and a hill in the productive area plus next to a pair of incense. Started with a temple in 3550 BC and finished Colossus in 2470 BC. By 1000 BC, I'd added the Oracle and would soon finish MoM, with the Great Library completing in 350 BC. A 1-turn revolt in 1150 BC to the Republic had Entremont producing 35spt. A library would be added before I started on the Pyramids finishing in 70 AD which began the Celtic Golden Age. During the Golden Age I built the Hanging Gardens, ToA (thanks to my only SGL) and the SoZ. After adding a Colesseum, Cathedral and the Great Wall, I decided to check out my progress and with 4192c & 56cpt in 600 AD my ETA was in the late 1700's. With an upcoming Sistine & JS Bach and a university, I should be able to pull that forward quite a bit, but in looking at the tables, I probably won't even make the Top 10.

I'm not sure what I might have done different except get a couple more SGL's (though 1 for the AA is about right). I'm assuming the top places probably also popped a hut for a town/settler and got at least 1 SGL.

I've got MapFinder running again to try to find a double cow, river, coast start so I'll try again tonight (unless I'm able to get a copy of Civ 4 at lunch)

 

[sanabas]

20k speed, especially below about demigod, is almost exclusively dictated by how lucky you are with SGLs. I've looked at the culture results for the 1265 game in the tables, I think I counted 10 or so SGLs from memory. Your 20k city should be building culture almost exclusively for the entire game, so as long as you keep decent buildings available by doing enough research and getting an army for heroic epic, the main difference in finish time is how fast you build, which is greatly affected by SGLs.

 

[denyd]

I was afraid of that. I ended up building a settler, barracks and a pair of spears during a 10 turn stint waiting for research on literature to finish.

I kind of wish there was an HOF without SGL's. It seems to be so random that a lucky DenyD can outscore a SirPleib and that's just not right.

 

[superslug]

I kind of wish there was an HOF without SGL's.

That's not a bad idea. I'll open an SGL-less HOF this weekend. I think I'll call it IV...

 

[zerksees]

I kind of wish there was an HOF without SGL's. It seems to be so random that a lucky DenyD can outscore a SirPleb and that's just not right.

IMO there are other areas of the HOF that are similar to this - tiny map conquest games come to mind. For these you need to really know what you are doing but you also need luck for opponent location and in many cases luck on your attacks to get a high score.

 

[denyd]

Duplicate post - I'll put something witty here later

 

[denyd]

Well 2 more tries are in the dumpster. Got to 1000 BC without a prayer of beating 1500 AD. It seems like you need to get at least 2 SGL in your first 6 techs (that's only 10 times the normal ratio) to have a shot at getting into the top 10.

I think I'll check out the tables and try to find a one that needs skill (not that I have a lot of that) instead of supernatural luck.

 

[Karl_t_great]

Well 2 more tries are in the dumpster.....

I think I'll check out the tables and try to find a one that needs skill (not that I have a lot of that) instead of supernatural luck.

Hey, IMHO only 1 out of 10 attemps (having a descent start) appears to have everything "right", whether it is having SGL at the right moment or having a position to survive on higer levels. Read moonsingers story on the top score chase for a lesson.

Still there are good slots open for 20k (though tiny looks avful crowed), I've just posted a large-DG-20k...

HOF:ing requires luck, skill and persistence ... do not give up.

 

[denyd]

I gave up on Tiny 20K at any level after 4 more shots and am now going for Huge Domination on Chieftain. I'm playing as Iroquois and have 15% with ToA about to complete as of 10AD. I'm sure I'll be no worse than third on the list (there's only 2 entries so far).

 

[archphoenix]

yes,I give up too,after study the top 3 games on culture 20K,

i find this simply:

one must get more than 10 SGL to get a good entry on HOF table.

so I will not play 20K game below about demigod.

 

[denyd]

Finally found a spot where I was sure to make the top 10 (since the table only has 2 entries) and completed a huge domination win at chieftain using the Iroquois and their mighty Mounted Warriors. I completed the win in 920 AD. None of the AI had reached the Middle Ages yet, so the MW's were fighting spears & archers. Only Sumer (Enkidu win) managed to have their Golden Age and only France (Oracle) and Portugal (Lighthouse) completed any wonders that I didn't. I only managed 1 SGL (ended up building Sun Tzu's) & 1 MGL (so late I barely got the Heroic Epic started).

 

[Mistfit]

My experiance with Chieftan Domination is that you need exactly one sgl... That is for the ToA. The rest of it is how quickly you can pump out cities. On the huge map I did very little fighting. I think I took out one or 2 civs and that was it. IIRC the only reason I did that was because I got tired of planting cities and wanted to fight someone. I used the outside in settling theory except where on the way out my settler ran into a food bonus that could be used to make more settlers. Spacing your cities was very important in that game as well. I wanted to make sure to plant the least amount of cities and gain the most tiles so I spaced them CxxxxxC so when the ToA pushed out the borders there was one extra tile between the cities that would be auto filled in.

Just a note on how I did it anyway...Not that I'm an expert on Domination or anything... (But I do hold the top game in that catagory)

Edit:
Once I got my SGL and I got Poly to build the ToA I turned off science completely to save cash for rushing more settlers

 

[denyd]

I ended up with 178 cities and 60 settlers moving, so there was a bit of over kill. The only reasons I went to war was to save my settlers a longer walk to find a place to settle and to have some fun using my 75+ mounted warriors. The biggest delay was managing my 160+ worker who were busy building roads to the outlying locations. For the heck of it I built the Great Wall (for border city defense), the Pyramids (faster growth) and Sun Tzu (only thing my SGL could do). I built 1 spearman & 1 warrior, both by mistake, plus 2 galleys to circumnavigate the continent. Aside from that, all I built only settlers, workers, (early on) barracks and mounted warriors.

 

[Mistfit]

I guess it is a different style of play. Which is one of the reasons I like Civ. You can get there by different methods.

In 10BC (the year I won) I had:
104 cities
35 settlers
4 workers
6 slaves
22archers
2 horsemen
7 galleys (I don't really know why... I did have a couple of towns off the main island)

23 Enduku warriors

and I controlled 1716 tiles

I was a Monarchy at this time but I had turned off science afterwards

For comparison Persia in this game still lacked CB!

 

[denyd]

I think my huge map was bigger than yours as I needed about 2400 tiles to win.

I didn't really spend much time selecting a map (only about 150 iterations of MapFinder) and probably will be a lot pickier next time. I didn't want to 'waste' an available 'play' night by looking for the perfect map. I was in the upper NW corner (think Seattle) and after the first 20 cities were settled my settlers hand at least a 5 turn walk along my roadways to reach a site. That was the reason for all the workers. Once I get my system hooked up again (adding a new video card), I'll set MapFinder on a mission to find a better map. Just curious, but my settings were huge, normal (wet vs dry), old and most available land. I'll probably switch to maximum water. I might also try a game without any military.

BTW: My only reasons for boats were to get an idea of how big the island was. I was about 75% around when the game ended, but I had yet to see a single island.

 

[Mistfit]

For comparison I went max water with all of the climate things in the middle on a 5 bil map

Mine looked like this:

 

[LulThyme]

20k speed, especially below about demigod, is almost exclusively dictated by how lucky you are with SGLs. I've looked at the culture results for the 1265 game in the tables, I think I counted 10 or so SGLs from memory. Your 20k city should be building culture almost exclusively for the entire game, so as long as you keep decent buildings available by doing enough research and getting an army for heroic epic, the main difference in finish time is how fast you build, which is greatly affected by SGLs.

Let me comment some on this.
Luck is of course very important in a 20K game.
But you need to know what you're doing in the first place.
There are many many things that will save you turns that are not luck dependant that require skills.

And no way are 10 SGLs required.
2 early ones and a slighty above normal stream after that is enough for a Great, even a record run for most tables.
This is of course with a good strategy.

 

[denyd]

Well, I learned a couple of things over the weekend.

Double check your parameters before starting a game. In a huge game going for conquest I made the following mistakes

1. Left the respawn AI flag on
2. Picked minimum land for the map which left 4 AI on other islands including one that needed navigation to reach
3. Turned off research for a while until I realized I needed navigation
4. Built way to many mounted warriors

Still managed a 920 AD finish

 

[Mistfit]

80% water is what I used on all of my Dom attempts...

AI respawn can work to your advantage on smaller maps if you have some military units to take additional cities. You can get extra cities without building a settler.

I still wonder about all of the wonders your are building. To me it is just extra settlers or units that are not being built. But that is just me

 

[denyd]

Actually, I just switched from domination to conquest, so those extra settlers just spend way too much time walkin to remote sites.

I've got MapFinder going today (Chieftain, Huge, No AI Respawn, 60% Water) looking for a setup for Hiawatha & his Mounted Warriors to complete a BC conquest. I'm thinking of moving up the huge conquest ladder to Regent with 2 per and then going back to the dominations as the Mayans. 100K games just took way too long.