GOTM 51 Spoiler

[la fayette]

I
X is one of the the digits of LaFayette's age.

Then I bet it's worth a green star (well ahead of my own conquest where the first digit is that of a newborn baby).

 

[URUWASHI]

Not necessarily. I did not build Athens on the original spot but rather one tile to the Northwest. The one turn delay in building my city is, in my opinion, worth the two extra specials (1 whale, 1 fish) I will gain once I reveal the black covering them at the begining of the game.

How did you know that it was a whale located at 18.40 ??
I played several turns until my triremes happen to " discovered " that it was Whales there ....how do you know that ??
If I move my fist settler one spot NE ( 19,43 ) I still wont see the Whale square........!!
In my CD the black spots dont have any information...." Unexplored "....well also I can not re-home caravans either,
But the fact that you knew that was Whales in an Unexplored spot in the start of the game.....I find it fascinating...... How do you got the knowledge....?? where the fish or the whales are...??
I decided to play a quick conquest game after I finished my original game ( 1770 ) , and Settle Athens on the spot you mentioned....19,43..but still was no Whale square to be seen ... after one of my triemes passed by...several turn after...
I am very curious , of how you knew that if you Build a city on spot 19,43 that you will get a "Whale " square.............

How that works ??

 

[la fayette]

There is an utility called "Hutfinder", designed by my friend Scouse Gits, which allows you to know where huts and special tiles are situated.
Ali probably used it.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

How did you know that it was a whale located at 18.40 ?? I played several turns until my triremes happen to " discovered " that it was Whales there ....how do you know that ??
But the fact that you knew that was Whales in an Unexplored spot in the start of the game.....I find it fascinating......

There is an utility called "Hutfinder", designed by my friend Scouse Gits, which allows you to know where huts and special tiles are situated. Ali probably used it.

I was not aware of the utility but you do not need one. All you need is the map editor, and some patience.

I learned the basics of the technic from ElephantU and have expanded on it. I call it Map Analysis. It allows you to know where the specials are (even if covered by grassland) and where the huts are. It works like this:

Start the map editor and create a world the size of your game. Find your starting spot's coordinates in the game. Go to that location in the map editor (some transformation is involved here as the mapping of the coordinates is not one to one) and paint all you see in the game. Then change the resource seed till you match all the visible specials/huts. (I am glossing over some details here.) Now you have got a recreation of the map of your game. You know exactly where all the specials and huts are. With black clicking you can also find out where the land is (but not the land form).

Map analysis is most useful for OCC but it is advantageous with any strategy.

 

[URUWASHI]

THanks Ali, I m sure that CIV II , has different CD versions....Again I am not able to use the Black Clicking that Lafayette described ..or RE-homing of Caravans as I have seen you all talking about...it must be on the old version and the CIV CD ( a 1928 Ford..LOL ) ....I guess I dont have the options to use what you suggested....but its is good to know..
Anyhow, I Finish my game in 770 ( not 1770 as I Post it, in fact I post 770 in about a week ago )...and decided to play longer to build a Ship ( I am ship Virgin ...)....then realized that by uploading game 50..after I finished ,sine I had all the techs... I could experiment and buid a Ship...so here is what I came up with:
For a Basic Space ship , 1 Habitational ( 10.000 ). 1 Solar . 1 LIfe support , to reach destination in less than 6 years I need 8 Propulsion and 8 Fuel Components and or or about 34 structural pieces.....so what IF I want to send 50.000 Settlers...???
I understand I need 5 Habitationals, 5 Solars and , 5 life supports....do I need 40 prop and fuel ?? and 170 Structurals ??

BY the way I played game 51...quick conquest..( and I finished in 360..sure I knew where the opposition was)....but it was not as fun....I guess as an old married man...Quickies are rare....and kind of a dream

...Night ALL !!

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

That was a fun little conquest game. Conquest in B.C. x50

Given what I know of la fayette’s age, Grigor’s green star is quite safe from me. "x" is not a large number in this case. Given the small number of opponents and the low difficulty level, I really over-prepared for the conquest campaign. I built MPE and Lighthouse before even thinking about sailing troops out. I started with elephants, but quickly moved up to crusaders (again - overkill).

After the last wave of troops were sent out, internal production was switched back to caravans. I built 5 wonders in “garbage time” to artificially pump up the score. Every citizen was happy at the end of the game.

I didn’t do the size 1 settler. I built two warriors to explore, then went for settlers. Early hut hunting was mixed as I got two early barbs who thankfully did no real damage, but I got two nomads for early growth.

Main Research Path:
Alphabet
Code of laws
Ceremonial Burial
Monarchy (2450 – instant revolution)
Currency
Map making
Trade
Writing
Mysticism
Horseback riding (MPE- Tech Trade)
Literacy (MPE-Tech Trade)
Polytheism
Philosophy
Monotheism (Golden Age) 800
Reduce science, focus on gold.

I took a chance by researching mysticism before MPE hoping I could get at least HBR and possibly literacy in trades. It worked out as I got both, which pushed me up to Monotheism for crusaders. I delivered a camel to speed philosophy research so I could get the Holy Horses out on the boats. As mentioned above, this was probably an unnecessary waste of time and resources.

MPE was built in 1150, Lighthouse in 950.

It seemed to take forever to get to the Vikings. I probably could have gotten there a few turns faster had I been careful/focused on my route, but it wouldn’t have changed things substantially. I actually stalled for one turn before capturing the last city to finish a couple wonders.

 

[Coren]

Man, you guys are fast!

At AD1 i wasnt even halfway done expanding over the continent, let alone thinking about conquest... and you guys were DONE?!?!

Ok, i knew conquest has never really been my thing, so i didnt exactly expect to win this one, but still...

Well, i didnt do badly, considering im usually a democracy/peace/science/terraforming player, finishing in 1190 AD, which must be just about the earliest non-continent conquest ive ever had . Ahh, well... we live and learn, unlike Hammurabi and Xerxes (i took Gunhild home with me ).

P.S. i just re-loaded the original sav and looked at the map... i do not see it looking anything like europe... Please point out some key features, maybe its just me...

Edit P.S. : oh, this is TheMaskedWizard, i dont really use this name anymore... is there a way to change ur username while keeping all the other things (like number of posts)?

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Man, you guys are fast!

At AD1 i wasnt even halfway done expanding over the continent, let alone thinking about conquest... and you guys were DONE?!?!

Part of the key to finishing so early is looking at the setup parameters, and planning for conquest from the very beginning.

 

[Coren]

Part of the key to finishing so early is looking at the setup parameters, and planning for conquest from the very beginning.

Sure, but ur gonna need cities to do it, right? You cant just tell those settles u begin with to charge towards the enemy, so ur gonna have to expand a little before u start building units and charging forward. Or am i completely off-key here?

I know MPE helps a lot to determine where the opponents are, in my game i didnt have to use it because by the time i had built it i had already met one and saw the infrastructure of the other two. Also, i got feudalism from a hut on my own continent one turn after making monarchy, severely hampering my ability to rush-buy. Lastly, one of the things i did wrong was i should have been more aggresive when first meeting the opponents, i spent too long building up my armies before unleashing themand i lost time hoping the babs would come up with some more of those useful techs while focussing my power at the persians and vikings, forcing me to move my armies around half the world after i was done with Xerxes.
But all those things considering i dont think i could have possibly knocked off more then a few centuries at the most. What units do you guys use to attack? just phalanxes and horsemen or something more advanced? i used pikemen, catapults, crusaders myself, and musketeers in the last part of my campaign against gunhild (thank you leonardo), although of course it should have been phalanxes instead of pikemen if it wasnt for that unfortunate hut.
Is there an article on early conquest that i missed perhaps?

Edit: reading back what i just wrote i think im going to do this one again (not re-submitting it of course) ill let you guys know how it worked out.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

Sure, but ur gonna need cities to do it, right? You cant just tell those settles u begin with to charge towards the enemy, so ur gonna have to expand a little before u start building units and charging forward. Or am i completely off-key here?

I know MPE helps a lot to determine where the opponents are, in my game i didnt have to use it because by the time i had built it i had already met one and saw the infrastructure of the other two. Also, i got feudalism from a hut on my own continent one turn after making monarchy, severely hampering my ability to rush-buy. Lastly, one of the things i did wrong was i should have been more aggresive when first meeting the opponents, i spent too long building up my armies before unleashing themand i lost time hoping the babs would come up with some more of those useful techs while focussing my power at the persians and vikings, forcing me to move my armies around half the world after i was done with Xerxes.
But all those things considering i dont think i could have possibly knocked off more then a few centuries at the most. What units do you guys use to attack? just phalanxes and horsemen or something more advanced? i used pikemen, catapults, crusaders myself, and musketeers in the last part of my campaign against gunhild (thank you leonardo), although of course it should have been phalanxes instead of pikemen if it wasnt for that unfortunate hut.
Is there an article on early conquest that i missed perhaps?

Edit: reading back what i just wrote i think im going to do this one again (not re-submitting it of course) ill let you guys know how it worked out.

Several things to respond to here. Hope some of this helps:
1) Research for a purpose - Before the starting the game, I planned out my first 10 or so techs in order with conquest in mind: Get Monarchy, Get Trade for MPE and Map making for boats and Lighthouse. My initial plan was then for HBR-FEU-Chiv for STWA and Vet knights, but I altered that midway through. Even so, I had a plan in place and made a concious decision to alter it to a new plan as conditions dictated.

2) Cities for conquest: with a few exceptions cities follow the general rule of "maximize food to size 2, then maximize sheilds." Except for the most distant, cities can produce 5s/turn if you have a fair amount of forest. This setup was blessed with many rivered forests which give the added bonus of trade with those sheilds. That allows more science along the way as well. initially this is to produce settlers ASAP. those settlers must quickly plop down a new city to start working. Preferably close together. A settler can build one or maybe two squares of road, because being connected is going to be important later. In this game, building cities on the river network saves a bunch on roads, and gives a bonus trade arrow. About 10-12 cities is usually a good core, especially given the low number of opponents. As long as you have a fair number of ports you have what you need.

3) Aggressive hut hunting - While I got two barbs early which is higher than normal, I did get lucky with two nomads which gave a big boost to my early number of cities. In general more good things come from huts than bad. Nomads are great, Money helps RB settlers and units. Getting feudalism was a bad deal for you because of the first row rushbuys, but at that point I probably would have focused on getting STWA and riding out with Vet Knights. I will say this: unlike la fayette, I use black clicking and hutfinder to zero in on huts quickly. It just automates the existing knowledge about the hut and special patterns. Black clicking actually backfired a couple times for me in this game as I "missed" a large peninsula on our home continent for centuries, and I initially miscalculated the proper route to the vikings. Had I done a lot of black clicking I also might have determined that Lighthouse was unnecessary, but I don't usually do it that much.

4) Only build things that help your goals - I didn't defend my cities the whole time. Defending units are pretty worthless in this game anyway. There is a chance of barbs, but one I'm usually willing to take to get the settlers/vans/fighters/boats out quicker. Even so, you often have a turn or two to react once they show up. At worst a city or two are lost. Pirates are the biggest risk and I never saw one. (the lower diffuculty level seems to help, I think). Even if I do defend it would be at most one fast attack unit to defend several connected cities. more often than not, it's a risk that pays off.

5) Hit with overwhelming force - With MPE I knew exactly where the AI cities were. Multi-ship task forces went out to each place with the intention of running roughshod over the opposition. When the AI is as slow to develop as they were in this game I don't even worry about defenders. Just send a swarm of fast (move=2) attack units. You can usually do pretty well with Elephants, but if using non-vets (no STWA) I much prefer the extra attack rating of Crusaders as they can almost always take phalanx on rivers with no problem. I land with enough force to take out a city and any nearby units with force to spare, hit the next city, often with a diplomat already in position to land there the same turn. Plan the sequence and movement you will use to capture all cities (preferably in one or two turns) before you even leave port (with a couple extra units for good measure). In a conquest game, I will often not concern myself with reputation so I just land and take them out before they can even react.

6) Plan ahead - My first task force sent out was against the Vikings because they were furthest away. Then, while they were in transit, I sent forces against the closer foes. I will typically take a civ's Capital first so that bribes are more affordable for other cities. (although in this game I only bribed 2 cities, and had enough units to take those cities by force.) I typically send a demanded caravan or two at the front of the task force for some cash to be used to bribe cities after the capital falls (or to buy more units for the next wave) The extra beakers are also a bonus if I'm still upgrading my military technology.

 

[Coren]

Thanx very much for the tips, im going to integrate them into my game and youll hear from me when i have more to say.

 

[Old n Slow]

I don't use hut finder & it shows -- Athens was founded on the starting spot after I searched one space & built a road. Much, much later I notice I'm a space away from a couple of specials -- oh well.

I'm halfway between 1 AD & 1000AD and have only a dozen or so cities -- but about 30+ techs, so we'll see how this pans out. Haven't beat up on anybody yet -- last game I startd the wars very late (but was rewarded with the satisfaction of taking out 14 Indian cities -- their entire civ in one turn.), but this game I may go with my standard visit with cavalry routine.

 

[TimTheEnchanter]

I don't use hut finder & it shows -- Athens was founded on the starting spot after I searched one space & built a road. Much, much later I notice I'm a space away from a couple of specials -- oh well.

Hutfinder can't tell you anything until you locate the first hut. I also built Athens on the starting spot and missed out on those nearby specials. There are probably ways to determine where other specials are when you only know the location of one special, but I'm not sure what they are.

In addition, I find it's not much of a concern to find the 3- and 4-special sweet spots in a rapid conquest game since my cities are going to be size 2 most of the time anyway.

 

[Ali Ardavan]

Hutfinder can't tell you anything until you locate the first hut. I also built Athens on the starting spot and missed out on those nearby specials. There are probably ways to determine where other specials are when you only know the location of one special, but I'm not sure what they are.

Map Analysis, as I described earlier, tells you both the location of huts and that of specials (even the ones covered by grass). And you do not need any special tools for it; just the map editor that came with the game.

In addition, I find it's not much of a concern to find the 3- and 4-special sweet spots in a rapid conquest game since my cities are going to be size 2 most of the time anyway.

Good point. Map analysis is crucial for OCC, important for space ship games, and less so for conquest games specially quick ones when your cities do not grow by much.

 

[SideshowBob]

Keeping a log has ceratainly been enlightning. What I mean is, yes I have covered the starting continent with cities and I've taken out the Babylonians. It's just a matter of time before I'll wage war against the Persians and Vikings. But it's already 350AD. In a way I feel I usually do better when just going along and seeing what happens and what to do, but keeping a log makes you awfully aware of your methods of playing.

So I was thinking about doing an EC. Considering my previous experience with EC a 600AD conquest would be nice, but that would remove all challenge from the game. The Babylonians had approximately 1 unit per city and they were mostly warriors. Now, if this would have been 100 turns earlier it would have made sence to charge on. But now? I really thought that the AI would be smarter... Didn't think about the fact that this was a Prince game...

So to get out as much of this as possible, I've decided to try and sustain a stable growth for as long as possible and pump out caravans (maybe my greatest weakness after warfare) and see how far I can get techwise before it's time to end the game.

Cheers

 

[Hexer]

Moin, my second one after GOTM...43?

Nice conquest-game. Finished x50 BC

monarchy 2050
marcopolo 900
Thanks to persia, they had Poly

 

[Grga]

I was trying early conquest for the first time and it went really well
I built Athens on the starting point, even though I suspected I'd lose a special later on, just to get the extra turn. Got a lucky advanced tribe from my first hut. Decided it's not wise to press on luck anymore so I didn't crack the next 4 huts I discovered until I got monarchy, just in time to switch in 2650 BC Got horseback riding and Polytheism and started amassing Elephants. I admit I blackclicked a bit, and that gave me the valuable information that my opponents could only be south or east. I got Maa Making, built a few triremes, and wiped out all of my opponents pretty quickly. I could've probably done it faster, but I guess I don't have the experience needed, also used the time while conquering to build a four wonders. Conquest in x00 BC.

 

[SideshowBob]

As I said before I really overestimated Babylon's defence. On the other I throughly underestimated Persia's and the Vikings. I thought it would be easy and that I could wipe them out whilst expanding like mad. Well now it's late in the game. The Persians have one measily city left, nad seeing as things are, I suppose I have to make use of the infinte city sleaze I've produced so Iäll be on my way to Alpha Centaury, preferably before the end of the last millenium. But it's interesting to see what the lack of a key civ does to your beaker count per tech... :shakehead

 

[Peaster]

I was trying early conquest for the first time and it went really well

Well, I agree! Finishing in the BC years on your first try is pretty amazing.

Congrats also to Hexer and the other BC-conquerers.

 

[Hexer]

I should start blackclicking, too
Some weeks ago, i didnt know, what blackclicking means. Heisa, and its a kind of...i mags halt nit.

Thx Peaster