G-MinorAug1: Mistfit Throws Down the Gauntlet

[killercane]

Just submitted probably my last of these, with a 925 finish. Im tapped out on maps, and the last few were quick starts when I found this one.

The domination limit was high (347). I found France quickly so I knew they were close, traded for alphabet by 3500 BC and went full speed to writing. I used Denniz's early worker gambit, and I think it paid off. I had 6 workers running around and used one to colonize iron and one for these furs to get into Dutch territory in two turns and attack on turn 3.

Golden Age started at 1500 BC with 3 GS victorious against 2 spears, and the Dutch gave peace for Utrecht 4 turns later (after taking Amsterdam with reinforcements). Gained a Great leader attacking Paris and the ensuing army singlehandedly took out Korea.

Towards the end most slaves and workers were joined for a mass settling effort. Gold was saved up to apply at one time to get the temples and the settlers going, and once borders expanded they were sold. That 7 gold +maintenance sure comes in handy.

 

[Tone]

I knew it! Everytime I get a bit closer, you come up with an even better game. Well done, killer!

I'd kind of prefer that kind of map. Makes it very easy to decide which direction to send settlers and military dudes, er, units.

I do at the start but I end up with things being produced in the core that are useless. Better planning needed, I guess.

 

[Tone]

I finally got my decent central start and fell just short of a 1000BC finish. 6 tiles short and a lone spear in Delhi stood in my way

Final finish 975BC. I didn't keep records but I'll trawl through my CAII files to get some key dates later.

A 1000BC finish is possible I tell you. A little bit of luck and I'd have taken Delhi two turns earlier!

 

[killercane]

That date is smokin'. Tone is the space race master AND the tiny domination master! I think 1100 is out of the question but 1000ish could be the tough date to beat. When did you start your attack?

 

[Tone]

I'm just trawling through my CAII autosaves to do a mini report but a few are missing so its not such an easy task. There is still room for improvement on this date as I didn't start my attack until 1350BC so I'm not using the GA to the full. However this time I had some luck in the early battles-that's *so* important IMO. No SGLs or MGLs. Maybe if I could just get a SGL around 1600-1500 for a Pyramids induced GA...

 

[Tone]

As promised a few details of my game. I probably didn't do anything new from what killer and Denniz have done but here's my (reconstructed) log

The start didn't look fantastic with only one cow and mountains and jungle on the fringes but it was central, there were several bgs and a lowish domination limit of 309 so I gave it a go. (I had tried arid and cold to reduce jungle and marsh.)

When I moved my worker onto the cow though, a second one appeared so I moved my settler NE to claim them both for the capital. Dyes also came into view. Nice!

Research was BW-IW-(trade for Alpha)-Writing-CoL-Phil-Republic slingshot. I got Philosophy in 1500BC and then switched off research. Gifted Republic to all when I was about to attack the Arabs and so everyone was happy with me. No SGLs

Initial build sequence: warr-warr-work-settler-work-granary

The AI were quite aggressive in their settling. I used my first settler to claim the wfp in the south with the added bonus of wines and also a plains cow when the borders expanded but then the Arabs chose to claim the spices just West of my capital. The Indians then claimed the gems north of this and so I had two juicy river bgs that were being squezed by the AI but in the end I settled inbetweeen them and eventually the gem town flipped to me!

As I went into Republic, this was my map. Any additional towns built were only to fill in space later on

In 1350 I had 2 gallics with a couple more on the way (plus 6 warriors to upgrade) and so I went to claim the spices from Arabia and started my GA.

With some reinforcements on hand, I then sent 3 Gallics to take the Arab capital and this is where I got really lucky. The Arabs had sent warriors to reclaim the spices but I had two Gallics there to pick them off. As I found out, this meant that they had left only one spear in each defending town. The shot below is from 1275 and each dot is where the town was.

I used the border shapes to locate the capital and then the others had no culture s they were easy to find! Each Gallic was successful so I really should stop moaning about the RNG! The green dot was only size 1 and was razed but the Arabs were down to one town in the far East. Peace was agreed to allow this town to grow for later.

The pain of a central start is that you are often squeezed from all directions but now that I was established, my new builds were already close to the front. (Although I only had three towns producing military whilst others completed culture or built settlers.) I declared war on the Spanish in 1200 and India in 1075. Delhi had a few defenders and the last spear held out in 1050. The poor terrain on the border meant that I could not get more troops in place to take it until 1000 (by which time I was just 6 tiles from domination) giving me a 975BC victory. There are quite a few autosaves missing from CA so the minimap animation is not perfect.

 

[Denniz]

Wow. That's date's going to be tough to beat.


Edit: I am going to have to try one with 3 opponents.

 

[MeteorPunch]

if anyone gets to 1000bc, they are the automatic winner.

 

[Mistfit]

Well I have given up being contrary... I have been trying to win using my good ole standby the sumerians. I think I could have beaten the first dates but the 975BC seems to be out of reach. (the last one I played did not have Iron with in 18 tiles of the Capitol

So... I will start Map Finder on some Celt starts......

 

[Denniz]

I think it was Benjamin Franklin who once remarked that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results. If I keep trying to beat 975bc, or even 925bc, I shall surely go insane.

I posted my other 875 game. I shall attempt no more. I am burned out on tiny, emperor, celtic domination attempts. I think huge, monarch, conquests may be in my future.

@Tone and @killercane: I give up!

@Mistfit:

 

[Tone]

I think it was Benjamin Franklin who once remarked that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results. If I keep trying to beat 975bc, or even 925bc, I shall surely go insane.

Ah, so that's my problem.

I've been trying to get a 1000BC victory but without success. The closest I've got is shown below. I needed the Indians to give me Bangalore for a PT as Bombay's borders were due to expand next turn and this would give me enough territory but they just wouldn't budge

So close and yet so far. Perhaps you can see that it was another case of an additional sizable island as I actually had over 75% of the domination tiles in view.

The tightest start I've had is this one. Seoul to the North, Delhi to the East and Madrid to the SE. Jungle and Marsh the other way. I don't think that I've seen all four capitals so close to each other before.

I've just got a few more saves to try...

 

[Tone]

Done it! I've got a pre 1000BC win so I can leave this alone now. Only just about though, getting domination in 1025BC. Maybe if I'd rushed a couple of those temples a turn earlier...

For those of you that are interested, this is what I did:

Spoiler :

The starting position was nice with a cow, wines and several bgs and the domination limit was 314. The marsh to the north was not good but when I settled I found that I had a second cow just above the first.

In other games I've found it tough to get an early granary built and claim a reasonable core so I've given up with the granary build. I therefore went with an exploring warrior then a settler to coincide with growth to pop 4. My warrior had found some ivory and although it was sandwiched between the the Spanish and the Indians, I claimed it.

I then built another exploring warrior and then another settler to claim plains wines and a wfp tile. There was nowhere decent for a third city without some preparatory work so I built a couple of workers and then a couple warriors. I built a granary and then ended up building only one more town after this for production purposes and to ensure that I got the iron that was three tiles away from my capital.

Research: I traded Pottery for Alphabet and BW in 3500BC then researched IW(2630), Writing(2190), CoL(1790). I then in 1650 I got a nice surprise in 1650 with the Republic slingshot completed-my first SGL of this series of games.

No one knew Polytheism so ToA was not an option but I think I would have gone for the Pyramids anyway. I rushed it in my second city during the revolution and became a Republic during my GA. No more research after that and I traded/gifted to ensure that the AIs were all in Republic to stop the whipping.

I had iron connected initially with a colony, with my first Gallic was in production as the revolution kicked in. By 1500 I had four of them to attack Madrid and a 5th to guard the 'empire'. Slow progress at first but soon with three towns producing Gallics and a fourth pumping settlers things were starting to roll.

In 1400 I took peace with Spain to leave them with just one city. Next turn I attacked Delhi and four turns later I attacked Korea. In 1225 I agreed peace with India to leave them with one city and then in 1200 I knew my luck was in...

I gained an MGL in the attack on Seoul which I used for an army and then a second in the same turn when I attacked a warrior just outside the city! I used the second to rush the FP in Seoul and took peace with Korea the following turn when I had them down to one city.

It was then just filling in the gaps with settlers or rushing temples although I took out the Spanish when they told my Gallic/settler pair to leave or declare when I passed through their lands.

Final map:

Key things I tried to do:
Get an early settler or two to ensure that I had some sort of core before the AI got there. If the land wasn't good, I didn't bother settling until I was filling in the gaps at the end.
I looked for river sites and luxes to try and keep research as high as possible. That's why I pounced on the ivory
I was aiming to have the capital and the second city producing Gallics by around 1600BC so that I got most/all of my GA.
I looked to get roads into the AI heartland. Whilst I was fighting one enemy, some of my workers were roading to the others.

 

[Denniz]

Done it! I've got a pre 1000BC win so I can leave this alone now. Only just about though, getting domination in 1025BC. Maybe if I'd rushed a couple of those temples a turn earlier...

You got me thinking about starting up Mapfinder again.

 

[Mistfit]

All of my attempts have been a comedy of errors...

I had one that at the beginning of the game I'm just setting up my capitol when one of the opponents pops a goodie hut just outside of my borders. The barbs that popped out of the hut landed directly ontop of one of my workers killing him one turn away from chopping a game forest. And in the same stroke attacks the capitol destroying a 1/2 finnished granary... That one got tossed

Another one I had a good stack of Celtic Swords (5) ready for attacking 2 English cities. All 5 of them died to rWarriors or rSpears ending my hopes for a Quick date.

Another one I got a SGL on Iron working. I decided that the Pyramids were a good idea forgetting that it would cause my GA to start with only 2 cities. That one ended up getting scrapped as well.

I've not given up but I have decided to change my tactics. I will start with 2 opponents instead of 3 to have more room to peacefully grow and start playing the outside in game again.

We'll see how it goes.

 

[DaveMcW]

And now for something completely different...


I was a bit lucky in 3750BC.

Then I was lucky again in 3100BC.

After that I had a Jaguar stack of doom, and didn't need luck anymore.

 

[Mistfit]

Great game DaveMcW! That is absolutely astounding!

 

[Tone]

1575BC? I hadn't even got started then! You're just a different class, Dave.



BTW was this with PtW or C3C?

 

[killercane]

Absolutely amazing Dave. You put us all to shame. Besides the 10 shield jags, why did you choose Vanilla?

 

[DaveMcW]

1. Barb huts are guaranteed to make an elite Jag (if he survives) which can then try for a leader.
2. AI Workers are cheaper.

I didn't get to use either of those tricks, but it's nice to have them available if I don't pop a settler.