[BTS] G-Minor 270 - Darius, Deity, Time - Deadline May 29th 2023

[Firmlife]

Things have gone according to plan. I was able to wrangle a cease fire from Lincoln, dispatch Gandhi's remaining cities quickly, and start in on Freddy. As soon as I declared war, he switched from fusion, which was half done, to stealth, alleviating any hope he had of a spaceship.

I've now taken all Freddy's cities and three challenges remain. I need to stay below the domination limit (I'm at 50% out of 60% right now), I need to maximize my score, and I'd also like to get through the game with no spaceships launching. Lincoln's got about 4 turns left on his last tech, Genetics, but I'm ready to take him on. Hats and DeGaulle were both reduced to two cities at one point, have begun rebuilding, but remain a very distant threat to launch a spaceship. Isabella I've not yet taken on, but she started in a bad position, then did Isabella things for a long time, and may never get there. I plan on going to war with her after Lincoln just to make sure. Maybe take the one city she has I want, and raze her capital.

I've been musing about why this game there may be no spaceship launches, and I think this is the part that might be especially relevant to Lcpl Jack Jones. I think part of it is that I'm playing a map with a smaller amount of arable land, so the AI don't get quite so big and conquest goes faster. And I think part of it is playing with 8 instead of 14 AI, and no vassals, so there are fewer AI to trade with each other, and AI aren't being kept around as vassals, which both facilitates more trades and makes the map messier and more complicated to deal with. But I suspect the major reason is that I chose to move forward with this map based on my experience in my previous games in which Mansa always and Elizabeth usually teched really fast. On this map, Elizabeth was my natural first target, and Mansa my natural third target, so they were both gone from the game quite early. I think Mansa in particular often acts as a tech broker, gobbling up any techs anyone else has that he doesn't, distributing the techs he has, and opening up the other AI's to make more trades since everyone else will only trade a tech if a certain percent of the other AI's have it, and Mansa pretty much always has everything anyone else has.

So I think eliminating Mansa, and keeping DeGaulle alive and really, really backwards, really killed tech trading this game since the one AI who always has every tech was gone, and there was an AI who pretty much had nothing (or two if you count Isabella). Hence, it's 2015, no one has all the techs for a spaceship yet, and I don't think anyone will.

The other thing that was on my list to try out is before I finished off Freddy, I use a spy to sabotage one of his spaceship parts (since I wouldn't need the espionage points anymore). It was much easier and less expensive than I expected. I know in one Time game I saw, Serial basically used spies to keep people from launching ships, but devoted a lot of his economy to espionage in order to do it. Anyway, that's another tool that might help.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

I'm up to game #34 with less than a fortnight left in this Gauntlet. I've mastered the of one city/one tank per turn trick through a workshop based economy but at the moment stuck finding the right way to use them effectively. I am finding myself warring on too many fronts; I now need to learn how to read and pacify an opponent's threats until I'm ready to confront them militarily. I've started playing on 'cold climate', high sea level maps with no vassals or barbarians and it has slowed the AI down a bit but there is always one rogue opponent on the other side of the landmass who seems to have the perfect start!

 

[Firmlife]

I'm up to game #34 with less than a fortnight left in this Gauntlet. I've mastered the of one city/one tank per turn trick through a workshop based economy but at the moment stuck finding the right way to use them effectively. I am finding myself warring on too many fronts; I now need to learn how to read and pacify an opponent's threats until I'm ready to confront them militarily. I've started playing on 'cold climate', high sea level maps with no vassals or barbarians and it has slowed the AI down a bit but there is always one rogue opponent on the other side of the landmass who seems to have the perfect start!

I was wondering if you're still with us. Anything I can do to help? With all the work you've put in, I'd really like to see you get across the finish line.

I am slightly confused that you find yourself warring on too many fronts. Generally, this is a peaceful set of AI and once you've taken down an opponent or two you should have a big enough army that no one would declare war on you. Both my successful games using the army has been the easy part. Build up 8 tanks, take out first opponent as three more come into action every turn. Once first opponent is gone, move on to second opponent, maybe with a one turn pause to heal. Rinse. Repeat. Usually once the cities from the first opponent start producing units, I will take my initial cities off army production one at a time to upgrade with Univesities and such, and then put them back into unit production.

I did have Gandhi bring in Freddy as a war ally once early in the game, but I just finished off Gandhi and shifted to Freddy. The order you take on opponents does not particularly matter, as long as they're moderately accessible, so if you're getting into wars you didn't start, just finish off the declarer as your next opponent.

Do you know how to read the Buffy planning war indicator?

Regarding someone on the other side of the land mass, I usually get a full world map ~1940 or so. The game I'm currently playing, I took a little time once I had the full map to do some analysis. Who might be far enough away to cause a problem? Can I take out Mansa early and stop the tech brokering? I wouldn't be afraid to abandon a map ~1940 if I didn't like the setup. But I've also found that I'm able to war constantly, and to take cities practically every turn by the fourth opponent or so, and get to everyone on time that way.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

Short 'n' very sweet!

 

[Firmlife]

Congratulations! Quite well deserved.

And the score is quite close to my first victory as well!

 

[Noble Zarkon]

Short 'n' very sweet!

Delighted for you, reward for your persistence and effort.

 

[Firmlife]

@Lcpl Jack Jones No commentary on your great win? I will admit, I needed a break from Civ 4 after my second submission. I'd been playing and pressing a bit too much trying to get the best submission possible in what turned out to be a set of games that took a long time to play and often didn't work out the way I'd hoped. At least the modern era plan worked!

I think the last thing I have to say about my second submission is that there were, indeed, no spaceship launches. Lincoln had the techs for about 30 years, but I had reduced him to one polar city and he never really recovered the production base to finish the last piece. (I also had my spies sabotage two of his pieces early, and a third late). Isabella finally got fusion somewhere near ~2045, so it would have been too late had she launched, but I also had spies take out a couple of her pieces.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

@Lcpl Jack Jones No commentary on your great win?

I started to write a debrief on my game but when I read it back to myself, I thought, all I’m doing is repeating what’s already been written in this thread … besides, as you say, I needed a break from Civ 4 so turned my attention to another ‘bucket-list’ goal ~ building a 1 million population mega-city with a vanilla/unmodded Simcity 4 … Yet again, I find myself trying to reinvent the wheel?! Ooops.

Anyway; here goes, more for my own sake than anything else although I do hope others find something of interested too: -

The Long-Awaited WIN! ~ Game #35. Debrief.

To start with a quick run over the map settings/options & what the Mapfinder search engine is looking for: -

Arid or Cold Climate (NOT ROCKY as it gives the AI far too much of a production boost, besides all those hill cities are a real pain to capture), High Sea Level, No Barbarians or Vassal States… And just the 8 named opponents.

Mapfinder Rule Builder: - rule #1 Bonus Type – 0il, rule #2 Bonus Type – Uranium, rule #3 Other Types – 20 River … as simple as that! I tried Coal but the health issues really are crippling which need resources diverted to build Hospitals/Apothecaries etc. which are truly counter-productive in the early game (9 tanks = 1st attack).

The first 20ish turns: - setting up the tank production line ~ In a nutshell your 3 CORE CITIES need to produce one tank each per game turn (a.k.a. A minimum 36‑hammer base production) using a Workshop Based Economy!

Build only the bare essential infrastructure: i.e., factory, levee, nuclear power plant & barracks; manage happiness with the culture slider and where possible accept the ‘green faces’ until health relieving resources become available.

DO NOT LOSE SIGHT of the GOAL – TANK PRODUCTION!!!

& Total War!​

Firelife recommends ‘taking-out’ Mansa early to slow down the AI tech rate, in my game here I think he was my 2nd victim more by luck than design. What I will say is either make Freddie your 1st war or wait until Modern Armour/Gunships as his Panzers are top rate! Also, whilst looking at the opponents, Isabella makes a good ‘pet’ as the other leaders don’t care much for her and she’s quite forgiving. I ended up gifting her cities to stay under the domination land limit. At turn #116 – 2050 AD I had 59.55% land & 95.32% population; I’d been planning to gift Freddie a city for the last dozen game turns but he refused to talk whereas Izzy accepted gifts right of the bat.


In danger of becoming boring I’ll just touch on two other subjects: Nukes & The United Nations.


Nukes – don’t build them. I found, if I didn’t have them the U.N. banned them! Although there still maybe a couple of Empires that have one or two, it limits their defensive capability. If you’re unsure, simultaneously attack multiple cities so as not to lose your complete army to a single nuke!

The United Nations will eventually force you out of your chosen Civics, so as your happiness/health caps raise gradually switch from workshops to watermills & wind turbines or build a few farms in preparation.


Thank You.

 

[Firmlife]

Thanks for obliging! I guess I have two questions, if you're inclined to answer. First, how many spaceships launched? Second, what did you do differently (or what went right) in this game that led to a victory? Sounds like being ready for the UN and maybe teching a bit more?

My second submission my land was right around 58.3%. I knew I could go higher, maybe one more city, and get an extra hundred points or two, but I was quite concerned about an unexpected border pop/city revolution and more keen to play it safe and guarantee the win than eke out more points. I would have been more nervous at 59.55%.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

I think it was 3 launches all tolled. I was at war with the Americans when they launched and hence already enroute to their Capital so no problem but I missed a 2nd civs launch on the same turn but as luck would have it I turned my attention to them & captured their Captial and got the shock mission failure message! Whereas the German Craft was pour defiance on His part and was destroyed the turn after takeoff.

 

[Lcpl Jack Jones]

What went different/right? A bit of luck & just being more prepared. Focus on the task in hand; build tanks! Take-out the 1st 3/4 opponents swiftly. Aim for Modern Armor by 2000 AD and keep the 'pedal to the metal' then once over the hill (which I was late - read too causious) transition to farms and tech like mad!