How many turns...

Lamabreeder

Chieftain
Joined
May 11, 2004
Messages
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If you would want to win the game in as few turns as possible: What is the minimum number of turns you need to reliably win a game in, say, deity mode on a random large map? Do you go for conquest or alpha centauri? What kind of strategy do you use? For conquest, do you begin your conquest with your very first good units (i.e. elephants) or do you prepare some time to hit only that harder? If going for alpha centauri, how much expansion and how much conquest do you do?
Lamabreeder
 
Man, there's a lot of questions there...

BTW, Welcome to CFC...

Winning by conquest versus winning by spaceship are two very different propositions. The earliest wins I have seen are by conquest (in the BC era), but they presume some predefined settings. Restarting Eliminated Civs needs to be Off, and Large Landmass, Continental Landform should be set. This will tend to set most of the civs on one large continent, allowing earlier land contact before the need for ships. Inevitably, one or two civs will be on separate islands, so Mapmaking should be a tech target after Monarchy (to get out of Despotism and use terrain specials fully), Trade (to build Marco Polo for getting other civs maps) and PolyTheism for Elephants. You can start attacking before Elephants, but they are the "biggest bang for the buck" that you can get within three techs of the start.

Going for spaceship involves researching through about 90% of the tech tree. With specialty starts I have seen it done before 1AD (there seems to be some built-in limit that does not allow a spaceship before 1AD); with random starts the best I have seen is early '00's AD. Over at Apolyton.Net there has been an ongoing "Early Landing Comparison Game" series that tested some strategies. There is also an "Early Landing Strategy Guide" done by a player named Solo that is a must-read. The current reigning strategy is a fast development of around a dozen cities including an SSC by around 1000BC, followed by high-volume ship-chain trading to distant AI cities (as well as some strategic distant colonies) to generate 2 techs per turn. With some self-imposed limits (primarily no hut-popping and no caravan rehoming) they have achieved AC well before 500AD (last year we were shooting to break 1000AD).

As to strategies, read around among the threads here and at Apolyton. In particular, Andu Indorin has just posted a "compilation with alternative" of Starlifter's "Power Democracy" commentary that is very insightful. Do some reading and post some questions and comments of your own and you will quickly develop your own strategic style. I also recommend joining the Game Of The Month group (GOTM), as there is a lot of cross-breeding of strategy and tactics there, and at the end of each game the moderator posts save files that you can examine to see how things were done. Lots to learn.
 
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