G-III Foxtrot

[Tone]

The difficulty level continues to rise but unlike last month's domination game you'll need to be nice to at least one of your rivals this time around...

The settings are:

* Mapsize: Large
* Difficulty: Emperor
* Condition: Diplomatic

Good luck to all participants. Games due in by 15th October 2008

 

[DWetzel]

Ooh, this looks like a fun one to me for some reason. (May have to do with sucking at war.)

 

[Lord Emsworth]

Doesn't look all that funny to me.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I hate when they find a table where you are #1...

 

[Lord Emsworth]

And the fact that I could have finished my game in 740 AD instead of 770 AD with only a _little_ bit more risk-proclivity doesn't make it any better either.

ETA:

I hate when they find a table where you are #1...

OTOH, I don't think it is beatable all _that_ easily. It is hard enough on Large Emperor to attain 4-turn research. In Vanilla, RCP helps a lot. And my game has near perfect RCP.

 

[Tone]

This conversation confused me as I thought that I had the number one slot. However I've got the Huge Emp Diplo slot. I'll certainly put one of mine up for the challenge next time I choose-sorry.

I think that Lord Emsworth's date is going to be a tough one to beat. Now if I can just find some time to try. It's been a few months since I've participated in the gauntlets, which is not good.

 

[Mathias]

My victory in 1725 AD won't win any fastest finish awards. With the limitations of OCC, there is just no way to compete for those.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

1725 with a OCC? That's pretty impressive, in itself!!

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I've got a nice start going - Greece, 60% pangea, max opponents (5 scientific), 3 FP wheat (which is interesting). I'll be out of the MA by about 800 BC, assuming ottoman's researches polytheism the way they usually do - then it's just a matter of expansion....

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Well, that sucked.

I was going to get about 720 AD, but no one (including me) got Fission on the interturn, and I let my hoover's prebuild finish (I thought I could get into the interturn and do something, but I was wrong), so I had to put sparta (building palace) into disorder and figure out how to get Fission in as few turns as possible - had to dump the market and pillage a wines tile.

Got research to the point where I could win in 760 AD... but an automated worker reconnected the wines, so sparta finished the palace, so I had no prebuild that would finish before 850 AD or so. *sigh*

No question that 770 AD can be beaten - I got theology for my free MA tech (nice!), but no one got engineering. AI got banking for me, but nothing in the IA, and I got industrialization - so, had my game had better luck, I would have been able to get a mid 600's AD game.

I think it was a mistake to have babylon and not byzantium, russia and sumeria.

 

[Tone]

That's tough. I do try to have as many sci civs as possible now. Having 6 sci nations is about an 18% chance of no one getting Fission (if my calculations are correct). This reduces to 10% for 8 nations and 7.5% for having all nine in play. I'll think that I'll go for 8 to allow an early SGL chance.

 

[nerovats]

I've got a nice start going - Greece, 60% pangea, max opponents (5 scientific), 3 FP wheat (which is interesting). I'll be out of the MA by about 800 BC, assuming ottoman's researches polytheism the way they usually do - then it's just a matter of expansion....

Don't you need 6 AI to qualify for a large world?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

Don't you need 6 AI to qualify for a large world?

Yes. I had max opponents, only 5 of which were scientific. Others were Egypt, Carthage, Rome, India and France. Sci ones were Persia, Ottoman, Babylon, Germany, Korea.

 

[Mathias]

I wasn't satisfied with 1725 AD. That game was a trial game with random opponents to test the viability of OCC under the given conditions. I didn't even archive it with CAII. It just happend to go well enough that I played it to completion.

So, I set up the game with preferred AI and found a few worthwhile starts. In the first one I played, I pulled Invention as my scientific freebie. Having to research Theology slowed my progress down so much that the AI beat me to Banking and I was unable to sell anything to fund further research. The second game had the same result. The six scientific AI pulled 4x Engineering and 2x Monotheism, leaving me to get Feudalism.

In the third game, I pulled Theology and stayed just barely in front of the AI to the end of the Middle Ages. In fact, one rival discovered Theory of Gravity one turn ahead of me, and another beat me to Magnetism by two turns. Nevertheless, I was able to trade for Medicine and Steam Power before pulling a monopoly on Nationalism, which I soon sold for a healthy income. The Industrial Ages went well, with an SGL and no threat to ToE. I traded for Fission upon reaching the Modern Times, then rushed the U.N. for a victory in 1565 AD.

 

[Spoonwood]

Any saves for us on any of those Mathias? I started some OCC Large Emperor games myself, but quickly gave up when I saw how awfully long it would take me to research Code of Laws even with The Colossus. Byzantines, I'd presume? Did you pull off The Republic slingshot?

 

[Nikodemus]

I submitted a 730 AD finish with the Koreans. Other settings: 60% Pangaea, warm and wet, no barbs, 6 SCi opponents: Greece, Ottomans, Sumeria, Germany, Persia and Russia.

I read Chamnix's write-up from G-III Pi and it seemed like a solid strategy so I more or less tried to aim for the same. I'm not entirely satisfied with certain things, but let me start from the good.

• The starting area was nice with enough food and rivers. (See the image below)
• I was pretty lucky with free techs, gaining Mono, Feud, Eng and Invention in MA, Steam and Med (and Nat and Ironclads) in IA and in the Modern Times the first AI (who lacked all optional techs) got Fission.
• SGL luck was reasonable too. I got the first one for Writing (->Pyramids) and the second one already for Republic (after long consideration -> FP). I got two more later, one of which I used for ToE and saved the last one to be a back-up plan for the UN.

The not so good:

• Persia tried to invade me very early. They must've launched the attack when I had like 3 cities. I happened to notice them with my scouting warrior but I had no barracks or WC so I was basically fighting with regular warriors. It didn't slow things down horribly (it was time to grow the cities a little bit anyway) but I had to expand in the wrong direction for a while.
• More rivers for 2nd and 3rd ring cities would've been appreciated.
• I had no resources whatsoever. The nearest horses were next to the Persian capital and they weren't even my closest neighbour. The nearest iron was almost as far and in the same direction. Saltpeter, coal and rubber were all also in the same area, and none were inside my cultural borders when I researched the appropriate tech. So I had to fight my wars with longbows. The Persians with their horses and immortals were a little annoying.
• Luxuries were pretty scarce too. I managed to grab just one and later conquered 3 more from Germans and Persians. The AIs refused to build harbors so I couldn't trade for anything for a long time either. I could only run 30-40% science in the crucial early MA.
• I'm not very good at making the AI research for me as I got nothing from them after AA. I made some mistakes in that regard and probably should've just tried harder. Somehow I just didn't have a feel for what they would be likely to research. And I guess I was a little too eager to take their cash.

I rolled some more maps last night as I felt there should be room for improvement. I added the Babs (forgot to add them earlier after I figured out I wouldn't want to try for CB-SGL) and the Byz (somehow I thought I'd have monopoly on alpha if I left them out.. but Greece was already there) and also switched my civ to Greece. I have a feeling it would make more sense to have the GA in the beginning of the MA instead of IA. And IF I get a good game going I'll try to utilize the AI more. No luck so far, but it should be possible to finish significantly earlier than what I did here.

Spoiler :

 

[Mathias]

Any saves for us on any of those Mathias?

Sure, what bits are you interested in?

Regarding how long it takes to research with OCC, these numbers are from the 1565 AD victory:

Writing - 50 turns (you'll be bankrupt otherwise)
Code of Laws - 22 turns (27 turns at initial rate, reduced by growth)
Philosophy - 11 turns (free Republic, of course)
Literature - 10 turns (including one turn with scientists durning anarchy)
Construction - 13 turns (first two w/o library, last three in GA)

All other Ancient techs were acquired in trade.

Oh... Yes, the Byzantines are the obvious choice.

 

[Spoonwood]

I know I did manage Writing in less than 50 even on a large map in my two tries. I had some sugar in one of them. I don't think I had Code of Laws that low, although I guess I should have looked for maps with more cows or wheats. A final save and a save right after you finished Writing would be nice, if you don't mind.

 

[Mathias]

Yes, you can get Writing in less than 50 turns, but at a much greater cost. Compare the 320-beaker cost of researching Writing in about 40 turns to the minimal research cost of 50 to 60 beakers (57 beakers in this case).

 

[Aigburth]

I started this gauntlet rather late, only at the weekend but managed to get in a last minute submission of 700ad

I don't have time for a proper write up at the moment but a curious thing about this game is that apart from raising to 20% for a few turns after the first growth to size 2, I never again needed to use the lux slider for the rest of the game!

I got lucky with the age turns getting Invention, Electricity and being able to buy fission relatively easily in the modern. After the AA the AI were able to provide me with Guns, Astronomy and Replaceable Parts so that helped quite a lot.

I could have done better with this game but was forced to play quickly due to running out of time!