GOTM134 China 100K - Final Spoiler - Game Submitted or Abandoned

[mad-bax]

GOTM134 China 100K - First Spoiler - Middle Ages

This is the last of two spoilers for this game. In order to read past this post, or to post yourself at all in this thread you must have played the game to a victory or a loss and submitted the save.

Posting of maps and discussion of tactics and strategy is encouraged.

Did anyone research past steam?
No one has mentioned that culture from wonders and improvements doubles after 1000 years. Is this important?
Is pop-rushing clever?
Where did you put your second core?
When you reached the 100K limit, had Babylon or India reached 50K?
Did you start RCP and then switch to ICS. Why/Why not?

Lots of questions. Personally I think there is more strategy in 100K than any of the other VC's. Perhaps I'm a little mad.

 

[Ditch]

I thought it would be clever and quicker to expand beyond my own main island and the little one to the north. I just wasted time and money researching on my own in Monarchy because I fell behind with the fighting and then nobody would help me; money that I could have gained in Republic and used to buy progress, and finish putting temples and libraries into my 'home' cities. I finished eventually anyway in 1764 having reached into the Modern era with Fission, Ecology, Computers.

But by the end, I was racking up 1,000 CP per turn which was very gratifying, never having tried a 100k victory before. I can't be sure exactly what the impact was, but I aimed to get temples and libraries in early in my first cities precisely to obtain the CP double boost after 1,000 years. I also evolved from quasi-RCP to ICS at maximum density by the time I reached the Industrial ages.

I think I'd handle this better next time, but it was fun trying a completely new strategy and goal.

I didn't use any pop-rushing that I can recall, and a 'second core' was never at the front of my mind as a strategy. As for the scores of Babylon and India, even using CivAssist II, I can't work out how to find out. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Forgive me if it is obvious, as I think my mind is losing me a bit.

 

[Lanzelot]

100K in 1415 AD.

Tech Progress:
After finishing Currency in 530BC, I again stopped my research, as I didn't have contacts overseas yet.

370BC: met the rest of the world. Gifted the scientific nations into the middle ages. Babylon got Monotheism, Persia and Korea got Feudalism. Got both for Republic and Literature. Also got Monarchy from someone.
270BC: Chivalry

Research was again paused for upgrades until 70BC, then I restarted it on a slow pace (30%) towards Astronomy, because the Great Lighthouse had been built in Persia (so no chance to get sufficient troops there in time; also I wanted to keep the scientifics as friends).
As long as I could still use my cash for rushing libs and temples, there was no need for a high tech rate, so I took it easy.

50AD: Theology
150AD: Education (researched), Engineering (traded)

By now I had conquered my home continent, so I did Astronomy 50%.

250AD: Astronomy

Then Navigation on a slow-burner (20%) for my Magellan pre-build.

380AD: Navigation

Here research is stopped for the rest of the game, except for a lone scientist. I hoped that trading with the AI might get me into the industrial age, where Steam or Nationalism could still be used to speed up the game. That plan worked astonishingly well. (Even though my 40-turn runs never were completed - the rest of the world always had the tech before me...) I think I bought 1-2 techs for gpt, when I didn't have anything to trade (e.g. Military Tradition, when my Riders were up against muskets and losses were high - this was the drawback of my rather slow approach to conquering territory).

390AD: Invention (traded for one of the upper branch techs)
510AD: Gunpowder (traded for one of the upper branch techs)
650AD: Banking, Music Theory and Chemistry. (Can't remember the details. Probably bought one and traded the other two.)
750AD: Economics and Printing Press (traded)
1040AD: Physics (lone scientist), Democracy, Metallurgy, Military Tradition and Theory of Gravity (for Physics and some gold)
Three nations are already industrial by this time, so I researched Magnetism in 4 turns.(Buying it would have required an enormous sum, and with all my universities I needed to invest much less.)
1080AD: Magnetism (researched), Steam and Medicine (bought from Korea for 190gpt ; I planned to declare war shortly after - at this point I thought I wouldn't need a clean rep anymore... - but then it took me 17 turns to finally declare war?! Can't remember, why I did this?!?)
1250AD: Nationalism (Should have bought it much earlier, Persia had it already in 1080AD. Don't know, why I forgot this. I guess the final phase I played pretty much lacking in concentration...


Here a description of the strategy I used:

• After some initial military for "sufficient" expansion, the core produced culture buildings.
• The core cities, which already had all available culture buildings, built units again for disbanding in the corrupt outer towns. That gave a significant shield-boost for temple/lib production in those outer towns.
• In addition to this, I generated a lot of slaves in captured towns, which were used for intensive forestry operations.
• The missing shields were then cash-rushed. (During the long times, when I didn't research, the core produced good commerce, especially later, when I had banks.)
• When I got Steam, the production of units for disbanding was significantly increased.
• And when I finally got Nationalism, I converted the huge army of workers/slaves I had by then into 20 shields a piece as follows: join worker to a size 6 town, then draft a conscript rifleman (80s), send him to a town where shields were needed and disband him for 20s.

So to sum it up, culture buildings were produced basically like this: chop 1-2 forests into the town, disband 1-2 units (either built in the core or drafted after Nationalism) and then cash-rush the remaining shields.

In general I think that the 1000 year bonus does not matter much in 100K games. There is only a small number of buildings which will get that bonus (compared to the hundreds of buildings rushed in later times), let's say 10-20 buildings, and if you can rush an additional 10-20 buildings later on, it will easily compensate for the missed 1000 year bonus.

Pop-rushing, which works so well in C3C, is probably no use in PtW: a) going back to Despotism defeats the purpose of "converting food into shields", because most of the food comes from irrigated grassland, which does not work under Despotism, b) Feudalism does not exist in PtW and c) Communism comes way too late.
So cash-rushing remains the way to go.

I may have made a big mistake in as much as I usually rushed temples before libraries, not the other way around as Più Freddo did?! I didn't think much about it, thinking that the cheaper buildings first might be better as they can be had earlier, but now I think that libraries first make more sense. I guess with correct play (libs instead of temples and using Nationalism earlier) a date around 1350 AD may be possible.

Culture progress:

Turn | cpt | Total
110 | 42 | 1083
120 | 49 | 1536
130 | 93 | 2257
140 | 159 | 3496
150 | 221 | 5428
160 | 276 | 7930
170 | 361 | 11181
180 | 445 | 15271
190 | 525 | 20132
200 | 599 | 25752
210 | 684 | 32217
220 | 790 | 39695
230 | 885 | 48133
240 | 989 | 57560
250 | 1162 | 68388
260 | 1355 | 81054
270 | 1566 | 95658
273 | 1614 | 100460

 

[Lanzelot]

As for the scores of Babylon and India, even using CivAssist II, I can't work out how to find out. Can anyone point me in the right direction? Forgive me if it is obvious, as I think my mind is losing me a bit.

I couldn't find any way either, except for "counting pixels" in the culture graph of F8?! Not sure how we are supposed to work that out, mad-bax?
In any case, none of the AIs ever got close... After the initial phase I always had twice as much culture than the rest of the world combined (judging by F8). What is funny: exactly one single city culture flipped to me during the entire game!! I remember other games, which were not even played for 100K, where cities were flipping to me left and right...

 

[bbrady413]

I love the fact that I found this site, and this Game Of The Month challenge. One thing it has definitely taught me? I have a LOT to learn about this game. I'm in the 1800s now and only have 35k for culture. I took over the starting continent, and had to take over three remaining Korea cities for the purpose of resources. But wow. You guys are pros.

I'm looking forward to future challenges! They are all fun!

 

[greatbeyond]

1ooK finally reached in 1846AD

A slow start doomed this try, key factors were:
-LOTS of barbs in the outlying areas interrupting production and pillaging way too much
-In my game the AIs that were not on my continent were building wonders at a rapid
pace.
-Numerous Elite victories without a single Great Leader until I had reached the Industrial
Age. Was anyone Else's early culture rush powered by Leader rushing?
- focusing on war and rapid expansion vs slow growth with culture
- not packing cities quite tight enough. I ended up with only about 113 cities when I had
figured i would be building around 150.

Great finish Lanzelot!

 

[Lanzelot]

Thanks, greatbeyond!

As to Great Leaders: I think they are pretty much irrelevant in a 100K game. A wonder gives you about 2-6 cpt. Even a library give more culture than some of the wonders... The bulk of the culture comes from hundreds of towns with temple&lib (5cpt).

Having said that, I did get a few MGLs in this game for a change. But most of them came, when all wonders were already built (either by me or by the AI). I ended up using the last 2-3 MGLs for rushing Universities...

I got one important MGL, however, just in time for rushing my Forbidden Palace in 10AD.

 

[jimmywfl]

I notice that some towns have libraries or temples that have double culture outputs. Why/how?

 

[mad-bax]

Culture buildings double their culture output after 1000 years.