G-Major 144

[Pangaea]

Yes (on conquest), I could probably have taken that city 10 turns earlier. So silly to grow up forces outside and keep waiting. But she did have four archers in there to be fair, so I peaced out and hoped they would leave.

It's a great spot though, and maybe I can change the quechua build to a terrace so it get access to all those forests (or hope for religion spread). Excellent spot for some key wonders, like GLH and probably Colossus too.

Once Hastings get another farmed FP (happening) I can mine the other gold and it can work both. Health from clams will help too.

Lincoln has BW but apparently not metal yet (fear my archer or some such line). Unfortunately it's a good march away from up north, but it's probably the best next target. Pericles is SW, but he has metal and Phalanxes I may soon need more than Quechuas to conquer civs.

Before swapping to Fishing, I had 22 turns left to Alpha. But that will be less when London comes out of revolt and can work both golds. I pillaged them earlier, which perhaps was a mistake, as it took a while before they got hooked back up. That's one of the reasons I postponed the attack actually. Just hope all that waiting around hasn't put me too far behind where I ought to be. I was worried about losing all Qs again, in case there were 4 archers.

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

never go 6 against 4. You have to get peace or lure them out, etc.

Early on, with no promotions, I go with at least 5 against 2. And only if it's not on a hill. And probably only if 0% culture. Otherwise it's gambling.

I agree that 6 quechuas vs 4 archers is suicidal.

To win a big Score game, some risks will have to be taken. Probably best not risk the first battle though, or any battles for that matter. 5 quechuas versus 2 unprompted archers in a 00% culture city is fairly conservative and advisable. I'd guess that 6-7 quechuas versus 2 unprompted archers in a 20% culture city will have similarly conservative outcome.

Attack hill cities only after there are no more enemy cities on flat land left. Quechuas that attack bill cities should have a minimum of the cover promotion. You will want 4-6 times the quechuas as enemy archers depending on the Cultural defense from 00%, or 20%. Even 40% flat land cities can challenged by 5-6 Quechuas with Cover per enemy archer.

After the initial wave of Quechuas, I sometimes built a Barracks so subsequent Quechuas can be immediately promoted to Cover.

In all these battles, you should expect that 1-2 quechuas will not be needed and are only present to.mitigate bad battle outcomes. However, they must be present, because otherwise battles will go bad when you have no reserves!

 

[Pangaea]

6 vs 4 was indeed suicidal. It was a desperate attempt to get anything out of the game, as too many nearby cities were on hills, and two AIs had popped BW from huts by turn 10. I was in "funk you" mode.

Wow. if the current map doesn't turn out well (sure hope it will after reading your comments on gold and research!), this might be an intriguing start too.

Spoiler :

3x riverside gold! Kind of a waste if there isn't any real food though.

Hmm, actually, there appears to be rather many FPs in the fog too, so would have health issues. Also looks like the only chance for food is NE of spices.



Maybe it helps to nag about the lack of good MapFinder starts

edit: Could settle on the green hill I suppose, and still get all golds, plus the rice.

 

[Pangaea]

I agree that 6 quechuas vs 4 archers is suicidal.

To win a big Score game, some risks will have to be taken. Probably best not risk the first battle though, or any battles for that matter. 5 quechuas versus 2 unprompted archers in a 00% culture city is fairly conservative and advisable. I'd guess that 6-7 quechuas versus 2 unprompted archers in a 20% culture city will have similarly conservative outcome.

Attack hill cities only after there are no more enemy cities on flat land left. Quechuas that attack bill cities should have a minimum of the cover promotion. You will want 4-6 times the quechuas as enemy archers depending on the Cultural defense from 00%, or 20%. Even 40% flat land cities can challenged by 5-6 Quechuas with Cover per enemy archer.

After the initial wave of Quechuas, I sometimes built a Barracks so subsequent Quechuas can be immediately promoted to Cover.

In all these battles, you should expect that 1-2 quechuas will not be needed and are only present to.mitigate bad battle outcomes. However, they must be present, because otherwise battles will go bad when you have no reserves!

To add to this (and thanks for the advice); unfortunately this calculator doesn't have the actual combat odds, the one reported in the game, but assuming the rest is accurate, it's still useful.

Take a hill city with 20% culture for instance, with unpromoted archers. Unpromoted quechuas need to win 8 rounds vs 4 for the archer. Add Cover, and it's 7 vs 4 rounds. Still terrible, we all know Hill-Archers are OP, but at least slightly more manageable if you have a lot of Quechuas with a suicide wish.

Shows how horrible hill cities are though, and what a huge difference it makes if your map happens to have few of them in your surroundings.

 

[Folket]

Pangaea, perhaps move settler W and settle. I think you can afford to loose the gold in teh long run to get a better capital and a faster start.

 

[Pangaea]

More blogging

Spoiler :

Wooh! 2nd capital



T105 and 4 cities is probably late, but it is what it is, and I'm pleased about having 2 capitals. Was also very lucky in that fight. Had no idea what he was packing since I couldn't get OB due to a previous worker steal. There were 2 archers in the capital, plus another that moved in (he didn't whip). Top archer had Combat + CG1. Plain Q only had 2% chance, so I threw a suicidal Cover archer at him at 16% -- and he won! After that I didn't dare to attack with a Cover+CR1 Quechua, despite winning odds, so suicided a plain one, before finishing him off after. Farmed an archer too, which was guarding a settler that he just whipped from city 2 north. Strange he would put him into danger like that, but I'm not complaining

Btw, who the hell does this?

Spoiler :

Not a single inner ring resource, and you settle on top of the best one.

"Well, you see, now the city will have four resources..."

 

[Pangaea]

Gotta run now, but damn, eh?

Spoiler :

It was a lot less fun to lose two Quechuas in a row at 86% when "farming" archers.

Got Alpha in T113 or so. Willem didn't have Mining yet! Only Gandhi had Writing. Nuts

 

[Sun Tzu Wu]

Good luck, Pangaea! You certainly have found many great starts. You will eventually get one you really like and play to the end.

 

[Seraiel]

T113 Alpha is very early Pangaea, the AIs not having Writing then isn't uncommon.

 

[WastinTime]

Yep, only one AI with writing on T113. I noticed the tech slowness in my game too which prompted me to suggest you self tech Alpha. A week ago, I would have tried to convince you not to do that. I didn't. I followed the plan of Math first that has worked over the past several years for me. But I don't play Huge often.

In the end, either opening probably comes out the same.

Were you able to get free Poly or Medi? Does anyone have Priesthood yet?

 

[Pangaea]

Good luck, Pangaea! You certainly have found many great starts. You will eventually get one you really like and play to the end.

T113 Alpha is very early Pangaea, the AIs not having Writing then isn't uncommon.

Thanks Hope I don't mess up this one. At war with Lincoln and Willem now. Since Willem didn't have BW and I could see a pasture, I needed to act quickly. Unfortunately the hill city I took didn't have food, so had to raze it. Moving in on another city, and there is only one archer, so should be able to take it with 6 Quechuas, and hopefully reinforcements will be enough to take his capital, which of course has 40% at this stage (please, pretty please, don't be on a hill!!). Bribed Mansa and Peter to war against them, as it was dirt cheap.

Yep, only one AI with writing on T113. I noticed the tech slowness in my game too which prompted me to suggest you self tech Alpha. A week ago, I would have tried to convince you not to do that. I didn't. I followed the plan of Math first that has worked over the past several years for me. But I don't play Huge often.

In the end, either opening probably comes out the same.

Were you able to get free Poly or Medi? Does anyone have Priesthood yet?

I find that if you are first (or near) to Writing, it's often a good idea to self-tech Alpha. Seems that is even more valid on these slower settings than on normal. Was surprised only one AI had Writing, but I do suppose it's a pretty early Alpha. I'm not very experienced on Marathon, so unsure about the various timings.

A few AIs have Medi and Poly, but none have Priesthood yet. None willing to trade them either, since so few have it. Not sure whether to tech them myself and get an early Oracle -> Currency, or to try to do Math first, and then hope to trade for at least one of them. Leaning towards the latter, but need to build up gold first. Ran out when doing Alpha. It was nice to be able to backfill everything else though, and see where there are horses and metal. No metal nearby me, so it's nice to have access to horses. Asoka is the lone one to IW, but I've no idea where he is yet.

One thing that could be nice with an early Currency, is that I may be able to sell the near-basic techs to some AIs, maybe even Writing. I've not given away anything yet, as in my experience the techs are so cheap that you don't get any + diplo for "fair" (lol) trade anyway. At least on normal speed. Usually need Math or Alpha or similar for real bonuses.

Am thinking a little bit about going deeper with the Oracle, but maybe it's a bit silly, and I do need Currency in any case. Maintenance will be a big issue. Despite a packed map, it's so darn huge that AIs are far away. That's one thing the smaller maps have going for them, like the impressive captures you did in the 5 million points game.

The bad thing with this map is that around half the nearby cities are on hills (6 of 10 at one count), despite very few hills around. Boudica's cities in the far west look quite juicy, but it's far away and I have no real force nearby.

One thing I hadn't considered is that Gandhi is mighty p*ssed off right now. 8 from "declared on my friend" as we get +2 each time. Not cool, and there is no fixing that relationship as these things never expire (which I find a bit silly tbh).

 

[WastinTime]

Yea, probably one of the biggest problems with this type of game on Huge is the 'declared on friend' penalties. Normally I'd cease fire and re-DoW much more often, but not this game. Having a good techer on Friendly is powerful. I haven't come up with a "trick" to solve this problem, but I've got a few ideas.

 

[WastinTime]

Thanks Hope I don't mess up this one. At war with Lincoln and Willem now. Since Willem didn't have BW and I could see a pasture, I needed to act quickly. Unfortunately the hill city I took didn't have food, so had to raze it.

Raze the city? Couldn't think of anything better to do with that city?

 

[Seraiel]

Raze the city? Couldn't think of anything better to do with that city?

I think he means that you should have gifted it away Pangaea, gifting it would have given you +diplo. I wouldn't have thought of that probably too.

 

[Pangaea]

That's what I thought too when I read that line, but I didn't think about that at the time. And wouldn't it be a bad idea to gift away a hill city? Ideally it should be easy to capture later, if you want to do that at some point.

Think I'll make an update of sorts. Good to write down some thoughts, and would appreciate some feedback as I'm totally new to this kind of game (score).

Have played to a little after 2000BC, turn 156. Have 10 cities and are doing ~160 That's with recently Oracling Currency, but not yet having the GLH.

I was a little hesitant, because it's frickin' Brennus, but there was no other option really, so I declared war on him, despite the fact he had two walled cities. He had horse too, but none had appeared yet, and it was easy to pillage (with a 2-move medic). Have taken 3 cities from him now, including both walls o'death. As you can imagine casualties were higher than I would have liked, 6 guys lost in the final assault. But then it was defended by 5 archers too (thankfully wrongly promoted, guerilla on flatland), so it could have been worse. Lost a highly promoted archer, but thankfully the Cover CR3 guy survived Bribed Mansa in on him and he actually took a city. Would be nice to have it as it will have access to copper, which I don't have. Pillaged iron outside Vienne, although Brennus didn't have IW yet, because I didn't want to take any chances. He has one city left that I want, and then there is another crap hill I don't want, but maybe can be used for whatever gifting shenanigans WastinTime had in mind?

North:

Spoiler :

Been working on the GLH in London, but haven't wanted to use pre-Math chops as I need to chop a lot there for the Colossus too. Will chop out GLH over the next few turns.

East/Brennus

Spoiler :

Will have access to iron, but not any copper for Colossus The city in the east I want, and I hope there won't be another 3-5 archers. 4 and 5 archers behind hills has been costly. None would come out despite leaving cities empty

Unfortunately I don't think I can wage any more war after this, until I get better units. Hatty in the south has metal and I've seen many axes there. Pericles W-SW has had metal for ages (he happened to settle on top of copper, knowingly or not), and there are many phalanxes and axes around. Washington up NW has horses, and almost all cities are on hills. Boudica even further west was weak for long, but has horses now. I've finally located Peter, yet further west, but other AIs have not been found yet. I suspect there may be a lot of land to the west of Peter. Or alternatively S-SW of de Gaulle. He's in the SW corner of the minimap. Mansa is pretty close to me, but I obviously don't want to wage war on him. Victoria still looks a bit weak, but is far west (south of Boudica, west of Pericles).

Have backfilled techs since I got Alpha so early, and with Currency a few turns ago we finally have gold again (sold Poly to loads of AIs for almost 1000 , plus Mono to Mansa for all this 430 Not sure where that came from, but thanks!

Wonder what to tech next now. Have lined up MC, which may be best if I want to get the Colossus in good time. But we have access to ivory, so war elephants would be nice, and CoL is another option. We have the gold for MC, though, so I'm thinking that next.

Spoiler :

Demographics look in good shape, although the army of course isn't all that powerful when based on Quechuas. We have 22 of those guys btw. A few are exploring, and a handful are used as MP, as Lincoln has a hill city in my midst, and I also needed some kind of cover in case of wandering archers. 10 workers, and 2 workboats that have been unlucky with paths so far.

Spoiler :

Overall I think the game has gone reasonably well so far, and some of the cities I've captured are very good. Amsterdam (way up north-east) has 5 sources of food, and could make for a good NE spot. I've just whipped a library and started running two scientists there. Washington is good too, with 3 corns (1 wet), plus ivory.

Have not chosen a religion or gone into OR yet, but think I will do so now. Brennus was a good boy and spread Hinduism around (and Buddhism before that), so only one of my cities lack Hinduism. Would be nice to get even more bonus on those GLH chops.

Vienne will eventually have marble, but stone is a bit out of whack so far, so I need settlers to claim it. Takes too long to claim them in 3rd ring.

Unfortunately I'm likely to have no chance to build the Mids. Asoka is lucky enough to have both marble and stone, and has over 1000 invested into (probably) the Mids. A few others have big hammer builds too, and I don't know what Darius, Roosevelt or Gandhi is up to, as I've yet to find them (plus Peter's main cities).

If you have comments on this, like what to do next, I'd love some feedback. As mentioned I haven't played a score game before, so this is brand new territory for me. So far I've basically played like a space game, conquering stuff, but at some point things should be different I assume.

For instance: usually I find swords a bit weak, but would it be okay to continue the war with them (since I have iron soon), without cata support?

 

[WastinTime]

@Pangaea: What is Mansa researching?

 

[Seraiel]

I personally think you build too much military Pangaea but maybe I build too little, I only have 12 active Checkers in my current game and morely try to have reinforcements in place when I lose some of them, 22 active Checkers seems very much for me.

Asoka building the Mids (if he does that) is an advantage because he can build them faster than you and you can capture them cheaper than self-building would cost.

I'm btw. also currently playing . I'm not sharing any screenshots yet btw. , because WastinTime doesn't aswell, the only thing I can say is, that I'm not even remotely close to 20 cities at T150 and that that's an area I'm working on next The only thing I share for the moment is, that my start has 1 Corn, 7 Floodplains, 3 Wine, 4 Golds and it's riverside . And because WastinTime also shared that info, I have Marble, I'm confident to get Stone aswell, Copper, Iron, everything available.

I just love finally having a reason to play Incans again and also to finally play a highscore game again. Someone needs to advertise this Gauntlet though. If there won't be posts in GOTM and S&T forums in 3 days, I'm gonna write some, but I'd really appreciate if the HoF staff would finally give us an answer towards the 3 months extension question and if Lymond would do the advertising!

 

[Seraiel]

Idk. what kind of protective shield you have WastinTime, but in my game I oracled Civil Service and I had 8 Golds, GLH almost safe, 10 cities and the opponent I was fighting had no strategics and all of that before 2000BC and then I lose 8 Checkers of which 2 had CR3 and 1 CR2 + a GG against a non-Hills-city with 4 defenders.

I'm not gonna write 1 more thing in this thread anymore until the HoF staff has answered and I'm not gonna give a single info about my game anymore. If you win this WastinTime because you played better, then I will respect you acknoledge your effort, but if I don't get a fair chance in this game and if the RNG continues to funk me, which it has done for 5y, then this game is gonna be the last game of CIV that I've ever played and then CFC won't see me again.

It's years since I complained about one thing, but playing competetively is not possible if playing safe is already a great risk and then playing CIV doesn't make any sense for me anymore.

 

[WastinTime]

in my game I oracled Civil Service and I had 8 Golds, GLH almost safe, 10 cities and the opponent I was fighting had no strategics and all of that before 2000BC.

Nice, I shoulda done CS with oracle too. I had it locked down so no one even started building it. I needed the currency money so bad tho. I would not have been able to tech CoL with my measly 3 gold....in the entire northern Hemisphere.

So did you tech Math, Currency, CoL? or Math, CoL, Currency?

I wouldn't give up that game. 8 quechua = 240h. That's not even 1 settler. Losing the promoted ones hurts, but just work with your golds and move on to the next unit (sword? elephant? HorseArcher?) maybe Maces for you.

 

[LowtherCastle]

Idk. what kind of protective shield you have WastinTime, but in my game I oracled Civil Service and I had 8 Golds, GLH almost safe, 10 cities and the opponent I was fighting had no strategics and all of that before 2000BC and then I lose 8 Checkers of which 2 had CR3 and 1 CR2 + a GG against a non-Hills-city with 4 defenders.

I'm not gonna write 1 more thing in this thread anymore until the HoF staff has answered and I'm not gonna give a single info about my game anymore. If you win this WastinTime because you played better, then I will respect you acknoledge your effort, but if I don't get a fair chance in this game and if the RNG continues to funk me, which it has done for 5y, then this game is gonna be the last game of CIV that I've ever played and then CFC won't see me again.

It's years since I complained about one thing, but playing competetively is not possible if playing safe is already a great risk and then playing CIV doesn't make any sense for me anymore.

I feel your pain, Seraiel. We lost about 5 spies at 2% odds or whatever. It was really funked up. We were ready to quit. Ting is, though, it sounds like you have an amazing game going, so maybe just sleep on it a bit.