G-Minor 269 - Maya, Warlord, Space - Deadline March 27th 2023

Not sure what to make of this start. Turn 60: 7 cities, 5 dead AI. 1st settler whipped this turn. 20 chariots built. No holkans. Starting warrior walked into Timbuktu on turn 3 or 4. 3 fishing boats captured this turn. This was literally the first map I tried from mapfinder. I just wanted to know what going agriculture->animal husbandry would be like.
 

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1AD: Game is going pretty well with 39 cities and around 59 workers. Mercantilism is coming soon with under 400 BPT right now. Just fired off a golden age. Total military units produced was 30 chariots and 15 horse archers. Fixed the error on previous post to turn 60 not 60 AD. On turn 61 AIs built both Stonehenge and the Oracle. Some screens below including one where Vicky built a useless fishing boats in London ... as well as a 2nd city prior to conquest. Chalk one up to adding fishing civs to the game. Less archers to deal with.
 

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Momentum continues. Game is on pace to break turn 180 or 1200 AD. 5 golden ages can last until turn 175. The faster a game goes the less time there is for golden ages. Shaving 15 turns off the current pace will make 5 golden ages too many.
 
Finished at 1210 AD without using the Oracle. Wheel technology is a free starting tech on warlord level. Why not bring horses to the Maya right away? Never mind rewriting history. Start by teching agriculture->animal husbandry. Gallop and go. The idea for delaying granaries was to crank out units faster. It's better to get a 2nd worker soonish to help with horse hook up. Cheap granaries will come soon enough. Some notes regarding the screenshots:
  1. Move onto ivory by pigs and settle. Hammers and coins! Like some kind of weird cottages.
  2. Mansa was next door. Let's not worry about skirmishers. DOW and have 2nd city on turn 3. (With horses even!)
  3. Fishing civ bonanza. Turn 59 we captured a worker and the next turn its city with a granary, cash, and 3 operational fishing boats.
  4. Play out game, submit and wait for it to be accepted.
 

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Game accepted. A flat terra with high sea level with max AI seems to be good settings for a fast start. I just did some more testing in the event an AI is not nearby to walk in by turn 4. A starting tech does not need to be chosen until turn 5. So a person can go hunting->bronze working via this method. A warrior/holkan pair can grab an early city + worker and still move on to a 2nd city. Meanwhile another warrior/holkan pair can get going on a 3rd city. With luck everyone survives and may get to a 4th city in time. A settler can be built for horse hookup (and 5th or 6th city) by turn 50ish. Chariots and horse archers can then be used.
 
I finished my game. Libbed biology T127. T159 finished research, T162 launched a spaceship. I don't know if this game can be accepted by the HOF, so I'll play another one.

It is interesting how the new settings make you act in an unusual way. I beelined for Steam Power before biology for the sole reason of speeding up my workers. I believe, I could have taken biology 5 turns earlier. Maybe should have done that instead.
Another new play for me is Three Gorge Dam.
What's the consensus on Coal Plants vs Three Gorge Dam? Coal plant takes 1-2 turns to build and then pays for itself in 5-10 turns. Three gorge dam is way cheaper; 1750:hammers: vs say 7500:hammers:(150 hammers x 50 cities) but comes much later and will take a while to build, especially if you don't have forests saved. Maybe just a coal plant in capital and IW city and then build Three Gorge in the Bureau capital
At first I was thinking "Who even builds this wonder? Too much time passed from AL to Plastics, too much value lost. Plastics is too close to the game's finish. And we are expansive on top of that, so +2:health: also unimportant". Now I'm in 3GD camp:). It is not so much about saving hammers (which is also important) as it is about saving time. Weaker cities only finished their factories at that point, and stronger cities could prepare overflow for Spaceship parts.

I didn't expect the game would be finished so fast, so I was thinking about the 4GP golden age. Didn't need it in the end. So in my next games I will use more GP for bulb/Trade mission. I built the shrine expecting longer game, but in the end the shrine is worse than Trade mission, and Trade mission is worse than GS bulb. But where do I get :gold: then? Need to think about that.

I was also considering settling on the other continent and chop the last spaceship part. No no no:nono:. No time for that. I settled one city for the calendar happiness resource, and I will do that in my future games.
 

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@ ariosto
T162 launched a spaceship
That's a very good time! When I play Asoka I go shrine first and have gotten a 1050 AD win on a large chieftain map and only 30ish cities. So a shrine isn't as bad as you think. Definitely no 4 GP golden age. There's no time for that.
 
flat terra with high sea level with max AI seems to be good settings for a fast start
I used flat worldwrap and high sea level too. Medium sea level has more forests, so I consider it too. Slower research, but easier to build a spaceship. Low sea level is just bad.
DOW and have 2nd city on turn 3.
This is an eye-opener for me. Does that mean "no city raze" option? Why didn't I use that?:wallbash:. Would help me a lot.
Expansion idea is to plant a new city and immediately chop a 2nd worker
Hmm, I tried to chop granary on size 1 (ideally on the first turn), grow city to size 2 and 1 pop whip workers. But I had much less workers than you in the end. Fell in "why not work one more nice tile" trap:D
On turn 61 AIs built both Stonehenge and the Oracle
T61 Oracle is crazy! I think, the earliest Stonehenge in my games was about T70. I would abandon game if I lost Oracle. Anyway, I aim to T59 Oracle CS in my recent games.
 
@ariosto Yes, No City Razing and max AIs.

Hmm, I tried to chop granary on size 1 (ideally on the first turn), grow city to size 2 and 1 pop whip workers. But I had much less workers than you in the end. Fell in "why not work one more nice tile" trap:D
It's hard to whip a worker at pop 1? Worker doing the chopping came from a granary city? I do tend to have more workers than most. Tech speed is about to go by at 1 tech per turn. Unfinished granaries don't really affect this speed. i.e. mercantilism

RE: Oracle. I had a really hot start so Oracle was not a big deal.
 
I checked my turn 34 save and was surprised at what the early discovery of horse had impelled me to do.
  • Capitol with granary with barracks almost done
  • 3 cities, the 3rd came via warrior rush since city 2 came early
  • 4 workers with 2 more almost done (its only turn 34 and almost 6 workers)
  • Horse hooked up in 2 cities via a 7ish tile road
  • Ivory not quite hooked up (except the one settled on)
This is somewhat amusing since I had gone straight for ivory based starts. Ivory does seem to allow for curious 1-pop capitol starts on a hunting->BW tech path. Food techs are a bit slow but the ivory coins and hammers together with a road here and a chop there can lead to an army (2 warriors/2 holkans) that can get cities 2, 3 and maybe 4 rather fast, these cities having workers and pop. Not a bad tradeoff for staying at pop 1 for a wee while. A single road from the free wheel tech really does speed up the initial conquest.

But getting that 2nd city ... with horse ... ag->AH tech path.
 
Finished another game, launched spaceship T161. Some milestones that I consider important:
Captured 2 capitals by T37. Thebes had three clams, irrigated corn, and cows. Bibracte had three clams, riverside mines and forests to build Oracle, GLH and Colossus. The total amount of food in the first 3 capitals is what I look at first when I decide whether to continue playing the map. Another important factor is the availability of marble, which was in capital.
Spoiler T37 3 caps :
I have no idea why I built pastures before a corn farm.
40 mutal.JPG

40 thebes.JPG
40 bibracte.JPG

Oracled CS T59 and switched to slavery + bureau. Slavery is quite late, but this way I only spent 1 turn in anarchy in the whole game.
Spoiler Who said Pacal is not imperialistic? :

60 1turn settler.JPG


One interesting feature of this map is that I was able to settle two great oversea cities early. This is where high sea level shines. Both cities have grown really fast and provided tons of value. To get better trade routes, I've grown both of them to size 18 as soon as possible.I believe, Calakmul reached size 18 at about T130.
Spoiler Oversea cities :

88 oversea.JPG


Finished Hanging Gardens T114 with 46 cities and 39 workers. This is the best result I ever got, but now I think it could be improved. One should aim to 50 cities by T115. Or maybe 40 cities, but five turns earlier.
Libbed Biology T121. Unlike the last game, I beelined it first, and went to Steam Power only after that. I was hoping for free philosophy from Mansa, so I gifted him CoL, Math and Alpha and waited for his GS. Unfortunately, he built Stonehenge, and of course the Great Prophet was born, so I got theology instead:sad:. Could have libbed Biology 1T earlier.
It is painful to build universities without slavery, so Oxford was finished only by T130.
This time I knew, that I don't need 4GP golden age, so I could focus on GS bulbs instead. Bulbed chemistry, astro (full bulbs), physics, electricity.

Three Gorges Dam was built T151, and research was finished T158. So it was only 7 turns for factories to pay off. Hmm, it's definitely not worth it to build them everywhere, but I still think 3GD is a good wonder.

I was aiming to T159 launch, so I knew T158 should be the last turn in golden age and I have 3 golden ages left. That's 37 turns, so I should start GA no later than T131, right? At least I thought so when I played the game:hammer2:, so 5 turns of golden age wasted for no reason:cry:.

Sub T170 is certainly possible. Maybe under perfect conditions, sub T165 is possible.
 

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@ariosto
Congrats. That is a good time. Looks like you did go the BW/hunting start before food techs.
This time I knew, that I don't need 4GP golden age, so I could focus on GS bulbs instead. Bulbed chemistry, astro (full bulbs), physics, electricity.
Yeah. It may be possible to take another 5-10 turns off the time on another map and different settings.
 
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