Imm Genghis Khan Isolation Game

[CarpoolKaraoke]

The thing about alpha is that it's a tech that is desirable anyway in like 20% of of iso runs. The key stuff is if you have alot of natural hammers. You quickly run out of useful stuff to build and being able to build wealth quickly repays the cost for alpha.
Now in NTT, when you need to self-tech alpha anyway later, then it feels like a given that alpha is a pre-optics tech.

Agreed. I think if there's window where you can get to currency without wasting hammers, Alphabet becomes optional early.

@CarpoolKaraoke I think academy-> 2x astro is still the desired bulb-path. Fourth guy would be used for a GA I think. On other maps that are better suited for GSci generation (the maps with food enough to justify early CoL, and maps with marble for GLib) some more bulbing might work out.
I hope I'm clear in that I'm just saying what I currently believe, totally open for change since this is abit terra incognita.
But I think that bulbing astro and only then making a try for lib is more often preferable than doing lib->astro.
There is some heavily lifting teching that needs to be done for libbing, and getting the astro traderoute+resource boost sooner I think pays off bette

@krikav, I guess it really comes down to 1) how rich is the capital and 2) the ratio of turns you can 100% tech while building wealth in isolation.

For double bulbing astro, I assume you still need Iron Working, Metal Casting, Machinery, Compass, Aesthetics, Alphabet, Calendar, Optics.
Total Beakers: 6083 --> 338 + 760 + 1183 + 676 + 1014 + 507 + 591 + 1014 + 2x bulb.

Astro via Lib starts with Currency, COL, Civil Service:
Total Beakers: 2619 = 676 + 591 + 1352
Then Paper (1014 + 2x Bulb Education).

So while Astro may give 60+ distributed commerce, the Academy boosted Bureaucracy gains are acquired ~ 3400 beakers ahead of Astro, and the opportunity to work towards Universities and Oxford up to ~2400 beakers ahead of Astro.

The other question I suppose, is the relative likelihood of losing the race to Liberalism without a Philosophical, Financial, or Industrious leader.

I don't know. Excited to compare with your replay:

Spoiler T161 Redo :

Out of the pre-Astro techs, I think I only grabbed Metal Casting before getting to Education. This time I opened with Agriculture, Pottery, Mining, Bronze Working, Fishing, Writing, and recruited my capital to help obtain the Academy.

Net effect: Shaved 4 turns off Astro (T161), and 5 turns off Oxford (T170). Gained 1 extra city = 8 in total.

 

[krikav]

I feel my comments are a total hodge-podge of mixed stuff from what I "know" to be true from experience (and that with tech trading on) and a bit of new experience or theorycrafting from this brief play with NTT.

But yes, how rich the capital is, certainly plays a huge role in how to play. With poorer capitals it's more common to focus on abit cottages in more cities, and in that case you can also delay writing and delay libraries abit further since you can ignore academy and thus there is zero rush to start with scientists in 3 cities early (which is a major stressor in most iso games I play).
If the astro target date is T140 say, if you want academy the 3 cities need to get working T90 (300/6=50)
But w/o academy it's so relaxed that it doesn't even compare. T106! (200/6 = 33.3)

You are correct with the techs except Aestethics, you don't need that to bulb Astro.
And in the case where you want to lib astro.. you still need all the techs required to bulb astro. (With the possible exception for alphabet..? Thats needed bulb, but not lib?)
What certainly does speak in favour of going the lib route is that you get burocracy up earlier since CS is prohibited prior to astro bulb (CS opens up paper bulb).

So tings I put in the different scales is burocracy beakers between say.. T125..? (Is that a reasonable target date for CS in iso?) and T145? (Reasonable target date of CS after bulbing astro?)
And astro beakers during the period T140 -> T160?

You make a good point about getting started with univs earlier, but the same thing is true about observatories.


This iso map is abit of an odd case due to the silver, two happines from forges makes much heavier emphasis on forges and makes it possible to ignore monarchy.
But ignoring monarchy is probably dumb now since rushing optics isn't as important as I'm used to.

The two techs that I would love to get, but are not required to get before astro is monarchy and currency.
Monarchy I have an normal intuition for when to get since it's so common. But I can't recal a single Iso game where I have ever gone currency.

I'm still waiting to roll a map where you have a huge continent of your own (so you can afford to just do your own thing) and room for two offshore islands. That would be the gold standard for pre-optics currency in tech trading at least!


@CarpoolKaraoke I'm excited too, thank you for theorycrafting about this. Haven't had any time for civ today. But will get started soon!

What was your techpath after writing?

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

You make a good point about getting started with univs earlier, but the same thing is true about observatories.

That's true. Just Oxford timing then.

@krikav

Spoiler Full tech path up to T161 :

3600 BC Agriculture
3160 BC Pottery
2800 BC Mining
2360 BC Bronze Working
1920 BC Masonry
1560 BC Writing
1320 BC Fishing
1090 BC Sailing (Moai Failgold)
675 BC Mathematics
450 BC Currency
400 BC Animal Husbandry
275 BC Code of Laws
50 BC Civil Service (Turn date???)
50 AD Metal Casting
75 AD Mysticism (wasted, forgot about caste)
275 AD Paper
450 AD Education
475 AD Meditation
520 AD Alphabet (failed to 2x Education, using on Philosophy instead)
540 AD Iron Working
640 AD Compass
780 AD Philosophy
780 AD Machinery
820 AD Optics
860 AD Calendar
1000 AD Liberalism
1010 AD Astronomy

 

[krikav]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

50 BC is T113 I think? 1AD is T115 so some turn before that. Extremly good date if you ask me.
1AD is a benchmark date for CS for me in normal continents/fractal/pangea maps.

I see, you went mason for pyramids. Well that certainly shoots down any plans for monarchy and makes MC-forges and the silver city less appealing too.

Math currency... Yeah maybe math is ok if you take Chiched Itza failgold into account. And with prolonged expansion value of math is bumped up too.
Alpha->Currency is what I would have gone for but will consider math more.

I like how you stubbornly stick to your previous dotmap.
I'm almost as stubborn! Just avoiding settling 1N since I know the idea of settling a southern helper city isn't as appealing.
I think I found a clear improvement in the very early game.

Spoiler :

Putting in the <10 hammers into the settler here while waiting for the second corn. Then just grow full steam ahead to pop6.

Revolting to slavery once BW is in, and then whip it out.
I think this leverages the IMP-trait much better than slow-building at size 4, producing the settler half-half with food/hammers (and thats with at least one mine).
Here it's almost 100% build by hammers due to the whip.
Slightly later city2 also solves the problem with a commerce-squeeze before fising is in.

Like this alot more. Overflow from the second worker finished a warrior before the copper was done, took advantage of not having copper still.
Beshebalik will finish another worker in time for the workboat too, with the aid of a chop.
Hope I can get this to snowball neatly.

 

[Fippy]

I'm still waiting to roll a map where you have a huge continent of your own (so you can afford to just do your own thing) and room for two offshore islands. That would be the gold standard for pre-optics currency in tech trading at least!

I remember how big Iso maps can be the most difficult, endless streams of barbs.

 

[krikav]

Well, at least they can keep you company in your isolation!

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

@krikav

Presetting the 9 hammers is nice - I got to remember that for the future. Not sure if it can be done with BW 4th tech.

 

[krikav]

10 turns off queue and it will start to decay.
I think I had one hammer decay before the whip and I went Agri->Mining->BW, so it's likely to be gone by the time you reach bw if you go pottery before bw on this map.
And also it's probably not worth the wait if you go pottery either, that would delay the settler even more, and one of the reasons to delay (to save abit of early commerce) isn't important since you already reached pottery.

Something that I must test one day or another, is if you can save a unit from decay by having it in on the top of the queue during turns of revolt. An if you experience decay if it's not.

 

[krikav]

Ok, I played up until T110 now. Felt very good in the beginning but maybe I lost too much focus toward the end.

Spoiler T110 :

I chopped alot, had 5 workers and the third city settled at T52, that was really nice.
Reached both Pottery and writing fast too.
Here I have saved up cash a while and now whipped the last wave of Libraries.
I could have accelerated academy by letting fish/crab city spawn first, but I figured it's so strong that it should take #3 instead.
The plan nos is that Nigh-Hsia goes first, then Capital and last Beshbalik.

Alpha yielded 10 bpt and thats even before all cities go research, Capital wants to finish Barracks as it's starting to decay.

At currency gotten the silver city settled now too. This is beyond whats common in normal iso, but here I'm trying to push it abit, still expanding more.

Academy just settled, it only gave +14 bpt, but the cottages around capital looks really nice! The helper city sattelites are doing a awesome job.

And at T110, got MC T109 iirc. But now I need a break, will figure out how and when to whip forges tomorrow.
9 cities now and that might be the max. Northern desert fish will for sure have to wait, but maybe that central stone/sheep can be settled once all workers are in position and other tasks are taken care of.

 

[civac]

I don't think the decay counter increases at all during anarchy. Not absolutely sure though.

The hammer decay is riddled with bugs. If you have a decaying unit in the build list directly below a unit that finishes the decay counter will not increase that turn. This bug is very useful in the early game. If you whip a lot or build cheap units like warriors you can keep units from decaying for far longer than you should be able too.

On the other hand, if you restart a unit in the turn its last hammer decayed the game will think the new unit has already expended its grace period of 10 turns and it will start losing hammers immediately if you put something above it in the build list.

 

[krikav]

Not sure if the forums are just bugging out for me, but I can't seem to upload files. The button is just gone.
Have asked in site feedback about it.

But I have uploaded a imgur image of T164 now.

Just one image though, but I have written abit about the path toward it.
Have not yet made any comparisson neither to your fresh try @CarpoolKaraoke nor my previous attempt.

Spoiler T164 :

Reached Monarchy T114 and revolted. Then the second GSci spawned in capital shortly after and I started to grow it up in size and take over cottages.
T142 the second GSci spawned. They both bulbed astro and T143 I met Monty and finished Astro.
Met Degaulle shortly after whom had Bella as a vassal oddly enough. Degaulle sold me his map for 200g and I got OB with all 3, gaining 63 commerce per turn and doing some deals.

T149 I finished CS, but as I got confu spread at the same turn, I delayed burocracy swap one more turn to get monotheism too to start spreading that around.
It's Hannys religion and he is shaping up to be a total monster this time around too. Monty is not running away as quickly this game but we will see...

Refused a 180g demand from Bella T159 and she started to plot right away. Everyone hates her and I doubt she will be left in peace long enough to actually declare.

Delayed confu swap to T160 just to keep diplo chill abit longer, but unfortunatly Monty hasn't started to plot on someone he hates yet.

Saved up cash to prepare to make a try for lib, but at T161 when I was 469 beakers into Edu Degaulle finishes education himself so I fall back to PP instead.
T162 I got 360 failgold from Sankore.
T163 Toku demands 180g and he actually gets them. Got to keep as many of them as possible as nice as possible to preserve traderoutes and resource trades.

T164 Degaulle finishes liberalism. He also settles an city on the westernmost point on my continent. I like this alot since this means I can gift him some spy-city and play espionage catchup with him if the need arises.

Got 360 failgold into Moai and will utilize that option quite abit more.
Hardly a single great people point in any city, but can revolt to caste+paci and start going down that route later.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

@krikav

Spoiler Rough comparison: :

For beaker gains up until T161,

It looks like I get +36 turns (T149-T113) of Civil Service at ~18 extra commerce (mid-point check for averaging) with 1.75 multiplier = 1135 beakers.

Whereas you have +18 turns (T161-T143) of Astro at ~60 extra commerce(?) with ~1.25 multiplier = 1350 beakers.

Remaining factors to consider:
1. Liberalism denial.
2. Oxford gains at ~50 BPT starting from T170.
3. Extra gains (happiness or gold) from earlier resource exchange.


Holistically: Looks like my save is up Education + Liberalism, while down Poly/Priesthood/Monarchy and 700 gold.

Honestly, it's hard to tell which option would be better with a more tech oriented leader. On one hand, something like Financial would incentivize getting self-multipliers sooner. On the other hand, teching faster would mean a better chance of saving Liberalism for something else.

 

[krikav]

@CarpoolKaraoke

Spoiler :

I'm up at T176 now and Oxford is still not up, but I don't think it's that far away either.
Still in bur/slav/OR and will likely remain so untill the univs are whipped at which point I'll revolt to caste+paci.
Can do a status report when I reach it perhaps?

Comparing this approach I did now with more cities, to a optics rush approach, I like this position quite alot. More mature cities earlier means much better preparation for warfare later on.
Getting pre-optics cities up to speed is tough in normal games, but with NTT it looks like there is more time to prepare anyway.

Normally I just write off any lib plans from the start. There is just too much risk that Lizzy or someone like that grabs it T130 and completely screws you over, where you know you can always do the bulb-astro thingy regardless of what the AIs are up to.
But NTT do change stuff up abit.

Last time around I went to chemistry through feud->guilds. Figuring that economics was nice to reach fast too, but I think I'll try to ignore that line completely now, going to chem straight from education.
I also went for stuff like constitution and even corporation.

Got to get the guns blazing sooner I think and will try to go for the essential rifling/steel sooner.

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T187 :

Capital had already whipped a market and was rolling forward the overflow.
Now when all last 5 cities where ready to whip their univs, it was go time. Whips all over the board.

Took opportunity to rush some other infrastructure too.

Then into caste+paci. I will not be ready to run specialists in a while, but whipping first in OR and then going away from OR makes the overflow abit better since it's not divided by 1.5 but instead divided by only 1.25 (due to the forge).
Caste is also needed for borderpop in the desert fish, and in the fish+whale island way out in the ocean.

Had 4 axes stationed outside the barb city, figured I would try to suicide them and possibly get a lvl4 guy out of the deal, with pacifism they where quite costly.
However... the barbs had other ideas and gibbed the entire lot.
1091 failgold from Moai now.
I don't wait for oxford, teching with universites is good enough.

T183 Monty declares on Isabella, niiiice!
Toku joins the same turn, and I tag along for diplo points too.

T187 Hannibal declares too after plotting for 1-2 turns. DeGaulle jumps in right away too. And now it's Isabella vs the world.
I don't know how we got here Bella, what toes you stomped on, but I'm glad it's you and not me!

Capital will get to continue to stock up on infrastructure, but the rest of the cities will start to spam maces.
Once steel is in, I want drydocks and after that I think I'll go straight for military science and try to get some attack going with cannons+grenadiers.
It's about 11 000 beakers to rifling and only 3350 to mil sci.
So Chem->Steel->MilSci->Theo (for the xp boost). Then I'll see how fast I can hit, but will tech toward rifling and possibly nationalism too to draft some reinforcements.
Would be nice if I could get a GPerson out and do a GA in paci-caste before going into slavery+theocracy, but have to see if timings work out.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler T187 :

Now when all last 5 cities where ready to whip their univs, it was go time. Whips all over the board.

Whipping universities in fully grown cities seems pretty expensive.

Spoiler T187 :

1091 failgold from Moai now.

I regret not using fail gold more. Taking Moai early wasn't bad per se, but missing all the other wonders was a big miss for me.

Spoiler T187 :

It's about 11 000 beakers to rifling and only 3350 to mil sci.
So Chem->Steel->MilSci->Theo (for the xp boost).

Probably the right play. I went from steel to rifling because my timing was off on getting sufficient cannons.

Spoiler T201: :

T189 Steel, T201 Rifling. Anticipated T206 Nationalism.

I've got cannons and boats ready, but waiting for rifles. Many AI haven't researched gunpowder yet, so Mansa looks like the target. Tokugawa and Montezuma have a vassal each and are fighting it out. Montezuma has rifles and cavalry though.

Fun mini scenario - I tried the privateer route to getting a level 4 unit but had to hightail out of Spain. No Pirates of the Caribbean for me I guess. Did get a level 4 unit from slow hitting the barbarian city, but nationalism seems better than going for heroic epic first.

 

[krikav]

Whipping at high pop is more costly, but i wouldn't have gotten the failgold I did if I didn't. I whipped all kinds of things, courthouses, harbours, pretty much all of it.
Right or wrong I don't really know, but when I get started with whiping for overflow I have a hard time to stop.

Nice with privateer!
They usually work much much better if you team them up in a band of 3-4, then the AI almost ever dares to attack and you can attack without worrying about healing up in safety.

 

[CarpoolKaraoke]

Spoiler T209 Montezuma sucks: :

T204 Nationalism. T205 Montezuma invades with 2 boat stacks of Cavalry. I kill them off with cannons and rifles, and get 2 Great Generals and a mass of unhappy citizens for my troubles. Couldn't really guarantee this from happening with Tokugawa/Monte split between Hinduism and Buddhism earlier, but oh well. NTT means his Frigate/Cavalry nonsense will continue for an indeterminate amount of time.

Regrettably, @krikav, any benchmarking from here probably goes out the window.

 

[krikav]

Well ofcourse!
Iso is quite interesting in that the pre-optics stuff is quite easy to compare.

But once the AIs start to interfere, things get complicated.

That was kind of nice by Mr Featherhead btw, much nicer than I got to experience my first time around.

T210 here:

Spoiler :

Did a paci-push recently, now swap into war civics and releasing units pre-built and decaying in queues.

The Moron DeGualle has peace vassaled to Monty, and Monty/Toku, both which was plotting, just signed a defensive pact.

If Monty doesn't causally cruise through RR+Combustion, I might dominate the seas abit.
Kind of worried still though, they move fast even without trading with each other. :|

 

[krikav]

Spoiler T222 :

I spotted Toku sneaking toward me with boats, so I geared up to meet him.
Also tried to accelerate my landing party toward him by going into Montys Harbour with my units, then closing borders with Monty (this teleported me into DeGualles territory)

That didn't go well for Toku.

I tried to lure Tokus rather gargantuan stack into Degualles fort there, when that failed I went up to the west and tried to snipe a city.

He didn't kill me while I bombarded, and then I shot down alot of units in the city too, but since he wouldn't talk I couldn't take the city (would jsut get retaken). So I holed up on the hill and killed 6-8 more frigattes/galleons which came down toward my navy...
But still he wouldn't speak.

My forward stack got obliterated.

And the next turn, Monty and his buddies come at me too.

But wait, couldn't I get Hannibal to help me out? Nono.

@CarpoolKaraoke Well.. I hope you fared better, I get a feeling that this map might be too hard.
A big problem with NTT is that you can't sugarcoat relations by gifting alot of techs, and neither can you really bribe the AIs against each other.

 

[pigswill]

@krikav. Why didn't you capture Toku's city, let him recapture and move in a stack for you to attack next round (w CR promos).