G-Minor XCVII

[vadalaz]

Great game Vadalaz. He now tempted to retire mine, and try 4 cities tradition immediately. Did you get any free techs? How early did you start the conquest?
EDIT: he that's some sick science that you have going at t165. Do post a write up please.

Well, I did have 3 cities build research there, plus a bit of jungle and some trading posts. I think I had banks up in all cities for the extra specialist slot, and the two observatories obviously helped too. Here's what I remember about the game:

The starting location had a mountain, a river, gems, 2 wheat and 2 salt tiles and a lot of trash like tundra and snow surrounding the awesomeness. I settled on gems and my build order was something like Scout x2 - [rush buy third Scout] - Settler - Warrior (had like 3 barb camps near the cap) - Settler - [rush buy third Settler] - Worker x2 - Granary - Library - NC. I DoWed Theodora early because she had some decent cash and sold her my gems so that I could buy a Settler. Had my 4 cities up by turn 42 or so I think, sitting at 9 unhappiness temporarily. I quickly got a mercantile CS ally though, and happiness hasn't been a problem ever since.

Expos BO was Library - Granary - Chariots Archers. The goal was to get two armies, 3 chariots, a Siege tower and a support melee unit in each. I think I finished NC on turn 72ish, then got two Siege towers out of my capital, so I had both armies up by t80 or so. That was too late to have a chance of stealing Drama, but I did get Construction and Engineering from Pedro, who I believe was going for the Great Wall. The extra caravan from Engineering was certainly helpful, my capital didn't have many food tiles except the wheat and salt. Built HG there after the Siege Towers, and got ToA and Petra in expos.

Meanwhile I finished Tradition somewhere around t77, got my religion, which was +100g on conversion/+15% production, built Borobudur just before getting Education and enhanced with +2 faith from wonders to ensure a faith-bought GS and +30% range.

I got Education on t105 I think, with enough cash for two universities. I bought them in the two cities that didn't have a garden, so that they'd get a head start in GS generation. Hard-built the unis in my capital and the last expo. Next stop was Astronomy, as I had two mountain cities. I burned a GW and built the Oracle for a t117ish Secularism. Tried to grab Parthenon as well but Ahmad beat me to it.

Around t130 I had the option to get PP immediately, but napkin math showed that reaching Atomic in time would be a close call then. I wasn't sure I'd get all the GSs in time, or that my average bpt would be high enough etc. Losing by 1 turn sucks and that happens often when I risk it, so I played it safe this time and delayed to t135.

With a bit of GS management (cities without bonuses to GP generation go first) I did get all the 5 natural GSs out in time though, and bpt was fine as well. That plus LToP and PT meant I needed neither Rationalism finisher nor the faith-bought GS to get to Atomic in time. I used 2 GS to get Sci Theory in 3 or 4 turns after PP, then another one for Radio and the rest in the end, plus Oxford for Atomic Theory.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

@ Bleidraner & Cro,

Thanks for the great tips about diplo! They are very helpfuf! I wish i had more time to play this - but it looks like i have time only for one training/main attempt!

@ vadalaz,

Awesome as usual! Not only fantastic tech rate at turn 165, but also great gold income and culture rate. Always amazed by your skill of pulling out great attempt in short period of time. Don't know actually how many starts you reroll before take one into play, but it can't be that many! I think this attempt is undoubtly gold medal in this gauntlet.

Getting back to your attempt, i got couple of questions:

Gold income is just wondrous. Did you build every gold building in every city?
Did you use caravans for sending food within your cities or for trade routes?

 

[vadalaz]

@ vadalaz,

Awesome as usual! Not only fantastic tech rate at turn 165, but also great gold income and culture rate. Always amazed by your skill of pulling out great attempt in short period of time. Don't know actually how many starts you reroll before take one into play, but it can't be that many! I think this attempt is undoubtly gold medal in this gauntlet.

Getting back to your attempt, i got couple of questions:

Gold income is just wondrous. Did you build every gold building in every city?
Did you use caravans for sending food within your cities or for trade routes?

Thanks!

My gpt was actually quite mediocre for a large part of the game, as building the armies delayed markets and the maintenance costs were crippling as well. Usually the big game changer for me, gpt-wise, is getting banks in every city, I always try to get them early. City connections also got powerful later on, especially once I built Machu Picchu.

I use caravans for food most of the time. An exception might be to complete an early maritime CS quest if I can become allies with them, or any CS quest in the endgame when growth doesn't matter so much. But early on, growth is everything.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

Thanks!





My gpt was actually quite mediocre for a large part of the game, as building the armies delayed markets and the maintenance costs were crippling as well. Usually the big game changer for me, gpt-wise, is getting banks in every city, I always try to get them early. City connections also got powerful later on, especially once I built Machu Picchu.





I use caravans for food most of the time. An exception might be to complete an early maritime CS quest if I can become allies with them, or any CS quest in the endgame when growth doesn't matter so much. But early on, growth is everything.

OK!



You also mentioned that you ran into -9 unhappiness during early part of the game - how you are justifying that? Unhappiness means -75% to growth and -18% ( in your case) to production - wouldn't it be better just to wait until you have enough happiness and settle cities after that? - this way you wouldn't limit your growth at least.

 

[vadalaz]

In my opinion, it's best to settle as quickly as you can, and as many cities as your long-term happiness allows, unless it hurts your NC timing too much. I think it's fine to dip into unhappiness for a few turns. The food penalty doesn't matter if your cities are maximizing production and wouldn't be growing anyway. Production penalty is negligible because a city with penalized production is still better than having no city and no production at all. -18% does suck, but it only took a couple of turns to fix. If I had better luck with worker steals and less barbarians, I probably wouldn't have gone below -1. Warry diplo early build queue is really busy because you need to get both your army and economy up fast. Waiting to settle = lost production.

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, the sooner you get those settlers up the better. Don't get caught in the trap where you find a city spot you like, but you wait to settle until you have 4 happiness. Because you don't settle, you can't improve the nearby luxury. If you settled on the resource, or brought a worker to immediately start improving, (assuming you have the tech) then you're maybe suffering 5 turns of unhappiness, but like vadalaz said, it doesn't really matter in the very early game. Another thing to consider is that on Emperor at least, if you let your capital get too big before you start dropping settlers, you'll get stuck in an unhappiness cycle. So early settlers are the way to go. I generally build a settler 10-15 turns earlier with Tradition than I would with Liberty. Population ruins are your best friend. Stall out at 3 pop, or 4 if you have great early growth, and beeline some settlers!

Settling on resources is the best of both worlds, of course, allowing you to continue planting cities without increasing unhappiness, but it's not always a good idea. (If it messes up the long-term potential of the city, like if you have to move one tile away from the coast) It's also not always feasible due to map luck. (4 *different* mining luxuries for best results... good luck with that)

Vadalaz played a really great game. ~t180 with a civ that doesn't have tall advantages is really impressive. Partially it's the start. Salt/gems is a particularly good combo for Tradition because of the early hammers & money. Salt has a 3.5 yield by my measurement, as do gems. 2gold = 1 hammer/food IMHO. Salt is of course the best. Technically, cocoa and citrus also have 3.5 yield, but improving only takes it to 4 total yield, whereas mining salt takes it to 5 total yield. Gems is the ideal settling spot for the 3gpt, and mining is the best luxury tech, because you can settle on hills and it's a first-tier tech that leads to forest chopping. So, Salt + Gems is better than just about anything but a NW in the capital.

Of course, it's not all about the start. My t107 warlike start was also salt, and was much slower on tech, so I think Vadalaz has pretty convincingly shown the superiority of the peaceful route, regardless of start. Tech is all about growth, and on top of that you have a busy build queue when going for fast victory. There isn't room for circus/coliseum/courthouse in that queue nor is there room for the -5gpt per city.

Another thing was that because I captured 3 of my 4 cities, I had only one mountain city, and it wasn't the capital. Observatories can play a huge role. (Although I didn't remember Vadalaz mentioning them, so he might have done it without them)

Anyway, point is, even if you don't play it as well as he did, peaceful is better. The only possible way for super early war to compete is to get a *really* early roll on, because you get so many free techs that it hardly matters what your early game tech rate is. Plus you can bully all the AIs while they still have money to burn, and that + the CS tribute effectively compensates for the downsides of early war. You still have to beeline NC after Mathematics, but getting it on t90 isn't the end of the world, because of all the free techs. The tricky part is the reduced growth due to planting cities later and having to annex... this is where you fall behind... The timing of annexing which usually needs to be early and the fact that a fast super-early warpath requires a lot of map luck make it a huge gamble. You need a close pushover opponent, friendly approach terrain, lucky CS placement along the warpath for maximum tribute, etc. etc.... so many things have to go right.

My t107 Edu game could not have started any more differently from vadalaz's. I went scout,scout,archerx4, beelined mathematics and rush-bought 2 siege towers. The advantage of this approach over peaceful, (when it works out) is that you can start getting huge peace deals prior to t50... 30 turns of *multiple luxuries + all their money and gpt* coincidentally *crippling* the AI's growth/military, making the conquest easier. etc. etc. not to mention you complete tons of barb quests. That gave me enough gold to rush-buy 4 universities no problem. But money doesn't equal growth, and that's the kicker. I've mostly been playing on seas, trying to get the lucky start where I get a 4-city start entirely through capture, all on the same inland sea, so that cargo ships can make up the difference, get enough Mercantile allies to skip the happiness buildings, etc. etc...

Unfortunately, that combination of luck hasn't happened yet. The seas slowed down my conquest, preventing me from maximizing the UA. It's come close but not quite. I believe that this combo can compete with a ~t180 finish, but honestly, it's swimming upstream compared to the reliability of the 4-city settled start, which can probably achieve ~t170.

Still, I may give it one more try. It would be fun to win the gauntlet with a strategy that is so Assyria-specific. If you get lucky with the map, 2 armies of scout/2archer/siege towers can clear the map by t100 and this maximizes tech theft. After all, a recent *Large* lakes King game medaled in the t100 timeframe, and that was without siege towers. So I believe it CAN be done even on Emperor...

4th try's the charm!!

 

[Manpanzee]

I flew too close to the sun and failed yet again. This time I accidentally finished researching Printing Press about three turns sooner than I meant too, and came up short by a similar amount. Gotta pay better attention. I am ready to admit that planting an Academy is probably not a great idea for this speed of victory, too.

Fun gauntlet, though. The Observatories are interesting. I was totally ignoring mountains in my rolls because I thought the Astronomy detour wouldn't be worth it. But my failures could have (and should have) been avoided by spending a few turns in Steel/Gunpowder before Printing Press. That's time that could have instead been spent on Astronomy, and the extra science would've really eased the Atomic push. That probably would have been a much better approach.

 

[Morcar_olmig]

Was going to turn 229 victory in my only attempt, but that didn't happen, because world religion bonus wasn't applied to me (although it was in active state in WC screen) - any trick with this?

 

[Cromagnus]

Ok, super early war may be less about map luck and more about careful unit movement. I finally got my 3-cities-down by t55 roll and it had everything to do with not getting greedy about CS quests and ruins. (Eyes on the prize!)

Technically, since I built one settler this is more of a hybrid run. But the map gave me an expo spot I couldn't resist.

I captured and annexed a CS, captured and razed Denmark's second city, then captured Copenhagen. Three free techs so far. (Masonry, Calendar, and Bronzeworking)

Now it's decision time. Split up the army (less tribute, more techs) or try to roll in one direction (easier captures)... hmm. I think I'll stick with one army and right. Less tribute, but Gao is closer and has a nicer approach.

This could be a t80 NC, two mountain cities and I may actually settle a third mountain city. There's a nice little spot southwest of Nineveh... no unique resources, but two citrus, a horse, deer, river... and forest to chop so it would catch up quickly. I have enough cash to buy a settler. Time to decide is now though. I think the lack of a unique resource means no. I'll save it for universities.

Spoiler :

Edit: Side note - I'm not super happy about the placement of Nineveh. I planted on Copper out of necessity, but this hurt me, as I've got like 8 useless desert tiles and 2 tiers of overlap with the CS I captured. But I needed that CS to bridge the gap to Copenhagen. It was either that or roll a new map. Which I might still do. I might save this to finish later. I think I need to practice the first 50 turns more, and stop trying to play every game to Printing Press.

Edit: This is an interesting point to compare peaceful and warlike. So, 4 cities by t55 is not all that impressive. I could easily have done that with peaceful Tradition, especially with the tiles in my capital. But, could I have gotten 4 archers, 2 siege towers, 3 extra techs and had cash left over? That's the part that's unclear. I feel like this game could be improved though. I think, given the extra unhappiness, I have to do better than this run to outperform a peaceful start.

 

[Cromagnus]

Was going to turn 229 victory in my only attempt, but that didn't happen, because world religion bonus wasn't applied to me (although it was in active state in WC screen) - any trick with this?

You must have it in the majority of your cities, if I recall.

 

[Bleidraner]

Well mine failed too, Babylon settled on a hill and with just archers and 1 siege tower I could not take it before t90, which is too slow. Could have rush bought the second siege but was saving for Unis. Anyway, same story, 3 cities by t90, Edu 109, but bad tech rate as the conquered cities were too small. If I have time I will try a late war Tradition game, 4 cities this time and no annexed similar to Vadalaz. But leaving on Easter break soon, so family time, may not be able to finish.

 

[Bleidraner]

You must have it in the majority of your cities, if I recall.

Yes I can confirm that.

 

[vadalaz]

@Cromagnus, the citrus mountain spot is really tempting, personally I'd probably settle it. Happiness will be an issue but I think it's manageable - 2 cities with horses, good faith output, Singapore right there, you can citadel gems out of Bucharest or Copenhagen... You'd probably need Notre Dame or at least Chichen soon, but with 5 cities it's easier to include those in your build queue I think. Your strategy sounds really fun, I think I'll give it a try myself. Just gotta figure out the perfect opponent list for this. Really wish this was a Major gauntlet, I also want to try a 3-city GL into a ~t55 NC into a ~t95 Education... That requires a really good start though.

 

[Cromagnus]

@Cromagnus, the citrus mountain spot is really tempting, personally I'd probably settle it. Happiness will be an issue but I think it's manageable - 2 cities with horses, good faith output, Singapore right there, you can citadel gems out of Bucharest or Copenhagen... You'd probably need Notre Dame or at least Chichen soon, but with 5 cities it's easier to include those in your build queue I think. Your strategy sounds really fun, I think I'll give it a try myself. Just gotta figure out the perfect opponent list for this. Really wish this was a Major gauntlet, I also want to try a 3-city GL into a ~t55 NC into a ~t95 Education... That requires a really good start though.

The opponent list is tricky, for sure. I went for opponents with a *supposed* low priority towards building Wonders, but that doesn't necessarily prevent an early GL & Petra. And some of those guys place a lot of cities.. which can be problematic.

Yeah, the 5th city is tempting. I saved at t55 though and I may come back to it but I want to try a few more runs, see if I can get even more free techs, and a start with better long-term potential. Nineveh is just so limited. By the time that city hits 8 pop it'll have no good tiles to expand into.

I keep rolling maps where I'm surrounded by CS. I need a map where I can just roll through opponents without a long delay between them. I think it's possible to get 10 free techs by t80 if you play it just right.

EDIT: I decided to play out that map until Printing Press. Because I can't help it.

Anyway, I didn't opt for the 5th city. Perhaps I should have. Happiness has been a non-issue thanks to some well-timed CS quests. I could have skipped courthouses and built more Wonders/etc.

Didn't quite make my goal of clearing the map before Printing Press, as you can see. Although, I suppose I could have teched Architecture first. But, t136 Printing Press is t184-185 victory, so naturally that's more important. Based on prior games I've played, I don't see any trouble finishing in one cycle, *especially given SIX maritime CS to ally...*

So, given the way this game is going, and the fact that I feel like a more aggressive start would have set me up even better, I'm waffling back towards thinking that a 1 founded, 3 captured city Tradition game can compete with a 4 founded city Tradition start. Mothballing this 4th attempt to try one more really aggressive start. MOAR WAR.

Spoiler :

 

[vadalaz]

Cool stuff. How many techs did you manage to steal in the end, what was your NC and Edu timing? Did you get the Great Library?

More importantly, can you really finish that in one cycle? Just one cultural CS and lack of gold for public schools would be a bit alarming to me. I remember you saying you don't always build them though? I'm probably overestimating how much science is needed for a t180-185 win. After all I did overtech pretty hard in my game. In retrospect I should've at least left myself the option to skip an era.

I'm waffling back towards thinking that a 1 founded, 3 captured city Tradition game can compete with a 4 founded city Tradition start.

Just checked my turn 136 save and I'm not convinced yet. I did have a better starting location and an observatory in the capital though.

Spoiler :

 

[Cromagnus]

I stole about 7 techs, all cheap ones except for Guilds & Ironworking, I think. Hard to remember. All in all, it was a crappy game, tech-stealing wise. I went (as it turns out) in the wrong direction, capturing cities from AIs that had chosen to follow the same tech path as the AI I had just killed. So a lot of my captured cities did not result in free techs. I may rearrange my opponents so that they follow different tech paths? Not sure how to reliably do that. The other thing I might do is split up my army. This time I had everyone stay together to maximize tribute and speed of capture, but splitting up your armies means you're capturing cities from different AIs at the same time, maximizing the chance that they have techs you don't have. I may rush-buy 2 additional archers & siege towers to get a second army. (6 archers, 4 towers total)

One thing I'm not convinced about is whether the super early war strategy *actually* results in more free beakers. If you delay starting your conquest, it's logical that you'd get more expensive free techs, because you've allowed the AI to research more techs before destroying them. However, this leads to competition in the wonder races. Without an epic start, this is a serious issue. Anyway, food for thought.

My NC was pretty late, (t88) but a late NC isn't such a big deal at the point in the game when you're stealing techs. I did not get GL. Edu was t106. However, I could only rush-buy two unis immediately. The other two I rush-bought between t110-t120 when the tribute/city capture money piled up. The tribute money really didn't come in on this playthrough, compared to my previous t107 where I had almost 3k gold...

Yes, I'm fairly certain I could finish that game in one cycle. In games when I've only taken Banking & Acoustics before PP my track record is pretty good, and again, 6 Maritime CS! +6 growth per expo, + 12 in the capital. Also, yeah, the beaker difference in our games on t136 is almost entirely the observatory. I have almost the same populations in my cities. Arguably I should have gone for Astronomy before PP instead of Acoustics. That was probably my one big mistake. I could have had two obervatories. Culture is perhaps the biggest concern. With only one Cultural CS there's actually a real possibility I won't be able to open Patronage in time. But that's really the only concern I have. I don't place a lot of importance in public schools. Yes, they're nice if you can get them, but not critical. (IMHO) I usually just rush-buy 1-2, which shouldn't be a problem. I can still bully the faith and military CS.

I think you're right. Given the game you were having, you could have opened Printing Press on t125 and still won. Yes, the timing of things gets harder, especially now that they've nerfed GS bulbs. I've changed my tech order to compensate. (I go for the cheapest techs before Industrialization, so that I don't end up bulbing a 1-2 turn tech... but that means no Big Ben, assuming you have the culture to open Commerce anyway)

EDIT: Re - public schools. Here's how I think about it. One GS is 8 turns of research. (6 really because you usually burn them when your beaker count is still going up)

Between PP and the vote is only about 35-40 turns. So, *one* GS at the end is equivalent to roughly 20% of your beakers/turn. A public school is generating +33% base beakers, for *maybe* half those turns. Add bonuses, and you're talking an overall bonus of +25%. So one GS is worth a public school. (*If you burn GS to take Sci Theory early)

But there's the rub. You have to burn a GS (sometimes 2) to take it early. So 1 public school is at best a break-even. The second public school is almost +1 GS (if the city has an observatory) but so is timing your natural GS spawn right. A Garden can end up having the same impact as a public school.

So, if you balance everything *just* right you can go from Radio to the Atomic in about 12 turns. (Rationalism Finisher on Plastics, 2 faith spawned GS, Oxford Atomic Theory, time your GS spawns right, PT GS, Pisa GS)

In other words, there's more than one way to skin a cat. I'd MUCH rather have observatories than public schools, because you get them earlier, they're cheaper, and you don't have to rush Sci Theory to get the benefit.

However, the smaller your empire, the more they matter. So I dunno, it just depends on the game. I usually only build public schools in the cities that have observatories + the capital.

Also, I almost never build banks. I'm usually too busy building Pisa/PT/Oxford. I'm therefore losing money + beakers... So, yeah, I guess there's just lots of ways to skin that cat.

I was thinking about your religion choices, and another key difference is that you took the production bonus first. I took Pagodas first, *then* the production bonus, because I was worried about happiness. As it turns out, I didn't need to worry about happiness. That probably cost me about 1 building per city. The thing is it's just impossible to predict how much happiness you'll need. I got very lucky with CS allies. I basically didn't have to even go out of my way to keep Mercantile CS allied. But I couldn't have predicted that would happen. So, I think the courthouses were probably worth it. /shrug

 

[vadalaz]

What I like about public schools is how they affect natural GS management. Early schools mean an early scientist slot and ideology's +25% bonus. This may or may not allow you to get an extra natural GS. In a t180+ game, it probably doesn't matter as long as you get early enough Education. But for a t170 game I think it can have a real impact. My mistake was going for a t183 timing while playing like I was going for a t170 (bulbing 2 GS for schools), due to miscalculations and lack of experience. In my estimations I think I was using 3600 beakers for bulbs and a 450 or 500 bpt average science rate after PP. In reality my bulbs were worth around 4.3k and the average science rate was likely closer to 550bpt. I wasn't really sure I could get the 5th natural GS in time either.

Building banks is just a safe play as well - most likely doesn't matter for t180+, but it may or may not be important for a t170 game. I dunno. I picked up the habit of getting markets and banks up early from playing Settler SVs some time ago, that really improved my finish times I believe.

The early war strategy has a lot of potential I think, especially on seas... Stealing IW and Engineering means 2 trade routes you wouldn't normally get that quickly, which is huge. In the couple of test games I've run today, the terrain has been awful for early conquest even on large lakes though. I'm trying to figure out how to time things right, but so much depends on the terrain, ruins, AI and CS city placement and seemingly random AI behaviour that it's really hard to predict anything and plan ahead. I think I'll just try to imagine how a perfect start would play out, and make an attempt to get somewhat close to that. I'm leaning towards Liberty for this, at least it takes some of the randomness away by allowing you to make some very quick settlers of your own and not depend entirely on AI city placement. Or maybe a Trad/Lib mix.

Teching to Mathematics takes a while too, I'd much rather steal it... I wonder if going for Bronze Working instead could be a better plan? Spearmen should be good enough for tributes and staying at #1 army, especially if the initial warrior gets an upgrade ruin.

 

[Cromagnus]

What I like about public schools is how they affect natural GS management. Early schools mean an early scientist slot and ideology's +25% bonus. This may or may not allow you to get an extra natural GS. In a t180+ game, it probably doesn't matter as long as you get early enough Education. But for a t170 game I think it can have a real impact. My mistake was going for a t183 timing while playing like I was going for a t170 (bulbing 2 GS for schools), due to miscalculations and lack of experience. In my estimations I think I was using 3600 beakers for bulbs and a 450 or 500 bpt average science rate after PP. In reality my bulbs were worth around 4.3k and the average science rate was likely closer to 550bpt. I wasn't really sure I could get the 5th natural GS in time either.

Building banks is just a safe play as well - most likely doesn't matter for t180+, but it may or may not be important for a t170 game. I dunno. I picked up the habit of getting markets and banks up early from playing Settler SVs some time ago, that really improved my finish times I believe.

The early war strategy has a lot of potential I think, especially on seas... Stealing IW and Engineering means 2 trade routes you wouldn't normally get that quickly, which is huge. In the couple of test games I've run today, the terrain has been awful for early conquest even on large lakes though. I'm trying to figure out how to time things right, but so much depends on the terrain, ruins, AI and CS city placement and seemingly random AI behaviour that it's really hard to predict anything and plan ahead. I think I'll just try to imagine how a perfect start would play out, and make an attempt to get somewhat close to that. I'm leaning towards Liberty for this, at least it takes some of the randomness away by allowing you to make some very quick settlers of your own and not depend entirely on AI city placement. Or maybe a Trad/Lib mix.

Teching to Mathematics takes a while too, I'd much rather steal it... I wonder if going for Bronze Working instead could be a better plan? Spearmen should be good enough for tributes and staying at #1 army, especially if the initial warrior gets an upgrade ruin.

You could probably pull it off with warriors & archers. It's Emperor, after all, not Deity. The advantage IMHO of beelining Mathematics is that you roll over people so fast. Two siege towers can take a city without help, and if they have any help at all they can do it without even healing afterwards. You can get a lot of mileage out of that. But yeah, you raise a good point. Is it necessary to beeline and rush-buy siege towers? Is it better than chariot archers + warriors? I don't know, but mathematically speaking, siege towers turn archers into CBs, and when there are 2 of them next to each other they have a higher total city attack strength than *rifleman* (42 vs 34)...

I think that, bang for the buck, especially taking unit maintenance costs into consideration, they're just too valuable... but yes, the biggest hole in my strategy is beelining mathematics before Philosophy. But, again, tech rate doesn't matter until you run out of techs to steal. Beelining Mathematics before Philosophy results in a t80-90 NC. It all kinda evens out as long as you focus on growth. Maybe.

EDIT: One thing I've noticed since switching to warmonger opponents is that I never get Civil Service, Philosophy or Theology from a tech steal. I still get Currency, and sometimes Drama & Poetry, but it's rare.

Of course, that may be more of a factor of how quickly I'm teching up as my strategy improves. I might just be *beating them to those techs*...

I think to maximize the early war strategy you need to get lucky and steal both Civil Service & Theology. This means researching the bottom of the tree, so that the only techs you can steal are expensive ones, and just *hoping* that the AI is researching those expensive techs. I think it's reasonable for AIs to have one (but not both) of those by t90, which would lead to t100 Education if you stole both. So I may rearrange my opponents and attack order to try and achieve this.

Anyway you raise an interesting point... if you stopped at the wheel, you might be able to steal Mathematics... But not earlier than you could tech it, because they won't have it by t45. (Generally speaking)

If this were Deity or even Immortal, totally different story. You could probably reliably steal every tech you needed.

So, anyway, if I have time for another attempt I'm going to try only researching the cheap techs, using archers + warriors, and hope that by researching all the ancient techs, I can then steal all the classical techs....

EDIT: Also, good point about public schools and the extra GS points. Forgot about that part. Maybe I'm not prioritizing them enough... hmm.

 

[vadalaz]

Yeah, I suppose the advantage of Siege Towers is just how quickly the cities fall. You can go from city to city and get several techs in quick succession. The cities have to be close to each other though, so maybe high expansion bias opponents would work best? Like Hiawatha or Shaka. Shaka does beeline Civil Service doens't he? Darius likes to do that too for Chichen, also maybe Siam, Mongolia and Arabia as they have UUs at Chivalry. Theology is trickier, Pacal maybe? He tends to sit on one-two cities and tech really slowly though. Steal a worker from him and he's stuck in Classical forever.

 

[Cromagnus]

Yeah, and putting Pacal on the map is a good way to lose a classical Wonder. I tried the Archer + Warriors gambit and it's really a no-go. Here's my best effort (of three)...

Army was 4 archers + 2 warriors. It took me until t80 to get my 4 cities, mostly because two of them were on hills. 3 free techs (Construction, Masonry, Trapping) by t80, which is much less than the early siege tower approach. I ended up naturally teching Mathematics.

t55 GL, t65 NC, and my captured expos built libraries first, so I didn't have to annex. Which kept me in positive happiness until I captured Honolulu on t80. This was the weirdest city capture ever. I likely would have failed in my capture, but I bribed Attila to DoW him, and he suicided his units against Honolulu. 1 turn before capture, with no units left, Kamehameha built Terracotta Army...

Anyway, looking like t104 Edu at best, and I have no happiness and no population. I do have ToA done and HG almost done. This would probably be a submittable game, but it wouldn't beat my t136 PP. I'll try one more siege tower run attempting to build GL ASAP after Mathematics, and then I'll probably go back and finish that t136 game.

Spoiler :