G-III Kappa

[azzaman333]

Play with the less aggressive civ settings

I almost never pick agri civs to play against in a high level gauntlet game - they expand way to fast and become too strong. Commercial civs are good, cause they can help with research later on.

I'm completely avoiding having any Rel, Com or Sea civs and now I'm avoiding Mil, which basically leaves me with the Inca, Maya, Sumeria, America, Persia and Russia when I play as the Ottomans. And personally i dont consider Emperor to be a high level game.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

It's not deity or Sid... but a 20K game plays at a little higher level than others, at least in the beginning. On most games at emp level or above,you dont' have your most productive city (and probably the one with good food bonuses) doing nothing but building wonders. While the effects of many wonders does help the Civ, it's not the same as a factory popping out 20 setters, then converting to a knight factory. There are advantages - you get surprisingly good research from a 20K game, because of the tourist bonuses.

As the ottomans, think about going the opposite way - have *all* commercial/seafaring civs. That way, you can go CB/Mysticism and hopefully be able to trade for Alpha.

 

[Tone]

As the ottomans, think about going the opposite way - have *all* commercial/seafaring civs. That way, you can go CB/Mysticism and hopefully be able to trade for Alpha.

That's what I've just had running on mapfinder, although with the Persians rather than the Ottomans. A short run didn't land a single start anywhere near the coast so I'll look in a minute at this larger batch and see what I have.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I've been trying a few games where I accept any start, coastal or not, with cows and hills and rivers... I find that it creates a large hole during research when I have no wonders to build if I get an SGL if I'm not coastal - that's sometimes a problem even on chieftain, but you can usually get over it after creating a unit or two by using a courthouse as a prebuild or something...

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I've been messing around with the greeks as a 20K civ and, besides having some fun (in one game, with a crappy start location), I caught 2 early SGL's and didn't have anything to use them on. so they ran around exploring until I traded for masonry), i have come to the conclusion that the greeks aren't a great 20K civ. Now, any scientific civ can be a good 20K one, but commercial isn't really that useful, at least at this type of game - perhaps on a small deity or sid, where you reach the OCN faster - but a great 20K score is dependent on 2 things: early SGL's and getting to shakespeare's fast - and greece doesn't have any traits that help you get off to a great start - agri gives you more food, seafaring gives you extra gold + start on the coast, industrial gives you faste workers, expansionist gives you free setuff, religious even gives you cheap temples and less chaos. Maybe only militaristic is worse.

 

[Tone]

What about the extra commerce? Surely lower corruption plus more gold in the city centres should help research towards Shakes?

 

[AutomatedTeller]

To a degree, yes - but on a map like this, you don't hit the OCN till later, so you don't get most of the benefits of the reduced corruption until later. And the increased commerce is 1 per size 7 city, so you need several luxes to get that bonus. Compare to seafaring,which gets 1 extra commerce for every coastal city and always starts coastal, or industrious, which needs fewer workers or agri, which grows faster. Late in the game, commercial civs kick butt, of course.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

btw - I have been playing games - I have 2 which are better than my #1 spot, but no where near Tone's 1415 - Greeks gave me a 1615 and Theodora gave me a 1590.

I will keep trying - I have identified a couple of weaknesses, like taking timeout to research Monarchy and astronomy on the way to shakespeare's.

 

[sanabas]

Researching Monarchy is almost always a waste of time, due to the number of AA wonders. Much better to trade for it when it appears, and build the hanging gardens then. Whether you research Astronomy or not depends on how many builds you have available. Ideally, you have ~400 shields of sun tzu's or leo's built when you research free artistry, and can immediately switch, then use sun tzu's/leo's again as prebuilds for Cope's/Bach's. But you don't want to have an AI complete them, or complete them yourself. 150 shields waste to get Shake's ~10 turns quicker can be worth it. I say 10 turns quicker, because cope's+shake's =850, so there's a 250 shield saving, which is 8-10 turns of build time. But losing those 600 shields on 2cpt really sucks. The main aim is to have shakespeare's built as fast as possible, not to have Free Artistry as fast as possible. So Astronomy can help with that goal, depending on the circumstances.

The only benefit optional techs give you in a 20k game is to make wonders available. You can outbuild the AI, with the exception of inconvenient cascades, so you should only be researching the optionals, like Monarchy, Chivalry, Music Theory, Economics & Navigation, when you're going to need them to provide builds. If you can avoid wasting research time on them, and trading for them instead, it means you get to steam power & rails more quickly, and you get to the modern age and more builds more quickly, meaning less chance of being stuck in the IA with no culture to build. From memory, that usually means researching Music Theory myself, while hoping the AI research invention, maybe gunpowder for me, but not researching economics or navigation. I also have a tendency to forget I've skipped them, as they no longer appear on the research screen. I've had at least one game where I've been researching flight, and had a popup saying 'so&so is building Smith's'. At which point I swear, trade for economics, and build it myself.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

yep - in fact, twice I've had games where I'm researching monarchy and at the end, someone shows up with it - total waste...

 

[Tone]

I've been trying a few games as the Persians with a number of rivals having Alpha for trade. Well, when I say a few I actually mean loads but none of them got very far as I'm not taking it past 1000BC without an SGL as early culture builds count for so much. It was quite facinating seeing how the research path taken by the AIs vary depending upon whom they meet for early trades. I even lost out on the Philosophy slingshot in one game, which surprised me I have to admit.

Having not had an SGL for what seems like absolutely ages I'm now going to try my hand with Theodora as my stash of decent Persian maps has now been exhausted and I needed a few coastal starts to play tonight. I'll miss those fast workers though.

BTW I agree about missing out Monarchy and the other optionals except maybe Music Theory. Occasionally I've had to get them myself but normally the AI obliges.

 

[Tone]

Having not had an SGL for what seems like absolutely ages I'm now going to try my hand with Theodora...

...and on my second attempt I struck gold with an SGL for CB. Trouble was that it took me a while longer to make contact with a civ that had Masonry and so the delay in getting Pyramids cost me a little in growth, culture and in unit upkeep. I managed 1430AD but yet again I was too timid early on and so HE is getting built far too late. I couldn't trade for ivory either.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm quite amazed - I haven't been able to get below about 1600. That said, I've had a ridiculous amount of fun - more war than I am used to. I think this is first mid-level 20K I've seriously tried - chieftain and warlord, war is what you do in a desperate attempt to get heroic epic, and on Sid, war is what you do when you are bored and not terrified to get killed Here, I've been able to play civs off on each other, going back and forth taking a city or two here and there...

Much fun not enough early SGL's, though And I tend to forget to keep expanding...

That said, in the meanwhile, I have run a small chieftain 20K game that ended in 1330, which is the best time for a small map. That one could have been a lot better, too.

 

[Tone]

I've made another submission and it's 1415AD again. A bit different to the other 1415AD game though, perhaps indicated by the final score which was around 3500 points higher than when I used the Ottomans.

I had a save from mapfinder which looked as if there was good long-term potential...

Spoiler start :

However I'd have to spend the first ten turns without the cow if I wanted a coastal start. I gave it a go and struck gold with another CB SGL.

Spoiler :

That's twice now (although I'm not telling you how many starts I've rejected by 1000BC ).

I wanted to be far more aggressive, both with my initial settling and with some early wars. My capital was not going to be much use until I got out of despotism-too many hills and not enough bgs plus just the one cow so I played the start a bit more like a 'normal' game. The extra settlers that my capital produced gave me a strong power base to kick off from, although it meant that colossus was a fair bit later than usual. I also got a second SGL which I held back a few turns whilst I cash-rushed a temple and a library so that the GLib could start my GA with the capital fully developed.

I was struggling to find a source of iron for those awesome immortals as my neighbours (Germans and Zulu) had claimed the nearest ones. This meant that my first war was delayed a bit longer than I had planned but in the end I got going on the Germans. They had Feudalism and iron but I bribed everyone to dogpile them and their iron was on my border so it was never going to be a fair fight.

I got my MGL close to the end of the war. This gave me a much earlier Herioc Epic build than before but still plenty of room for improvement here.

Spoiler :

I eventually took most of the German land before leaving them with one city. The Aztecs KO'd them soon afterwards though.

My massive army was costing me plenty of cash so I took over the backward Zulu nation and started to build a stack of science farms on my borders. The Aztecs sneaked me so I took all their jungle and made a load more farms. The Incans attacked but they were far away so I just let my friends the Chinese and Mayans deal with them. The Americans then attacked so I made a load more farms and then finally my Russian allies turned on me so I ended up with around 55% of the landmass and research was never a problem.

The minimaps show my progress towards domination at 10AD (end of peaceful expansion), 500AD (end of Germam war), 1000AD (after Zulu elimiation) and the final save.

Spoiler minimaps :

SGLs in the Middle Ages were non-existant though which hurt my finish date and meant the difference between a good game and a great one. I was just lucky that the AI didn't look to build wonders in their most powerful cities. I can't remember the last time that I built every wonder possible in Modern Times. I even built SDI for heavens sake!!!!

Spoiler builds :

 

[nerovats]

Wow How many sgl's did you get? I see lots of times wonders in 1 or 2 turns? Most I ever got was 4, getting the last 1 the very last turn.

 

[Tone]

I didn't keep notes but from memory, aided by the sorted build list below, I got a total of 6.

Spoiler :

However I maintain that it's not so much how many but when you get them. Those last three didn't do too much as my final cpt was 173 so they were just icing on the cake. However those first two have a massive effect on the finish date and without them I would have stopped the game and looked for a new save. The third was useful as I'm not sure if I had been able to beat the AI to it due to cascades plus the discovery of MuTh at the same time. However I was only 8 turns from it as two turns to cash rush a factory and coal plant would have taken my city to over 100spt.

I would certainly swap those last three for just one more in the AA or early MA!!!

 

[nerovats]

looks like 7 (internet). Agree 1 early is more important then 3 late ones. Especially rushing the piramids after 10-15 turns is an enormous benefit, in any game.

 

[Tone]

looks like 7 (internet).

Oooops! Well spotted.

OK, I'll swap those last four SGLs for one AA/early MA SGL.

 

[AutomatedTeller]

the RNG has a sense of humor... nothing like getting a nice game started, with an early SGL... only to get 1 other... on, literally, the last turn, just before you win!!1

 

[AutomatedTeller]

I'm still chugging on this, btw. One problem I have run into is that MapFinder keeps crapping out on me, so it's hard to do a good persia/ottoman start, cause you really need to run through a lot of maps to find a coastal.

I tried something new, on a regent map - Carthage. it worked ok, though I missed the fastest time on that board by 1 turn - adding insult to injury, I got an SGL on the turn I hit 20K. My attempts on Emperor have run into the problem that the AI sometimes completes collosus before I do (since I delay it so as to not get a despotic GA. I may just screw that and plan for the despotic GA - with collosus, it will still help research, at least for tiles that are on a river or coastal or have a commerce bonus.